The Murdoch Pay Wall

1)      Do you agree with James Murdoch that the BBC should not be allowed to provide free news online?

I believe that the BBC should not be providing free news to the public as it is unfair on others institutions. The public already pay the BBC licence fee which covers the costs of the news with all the reporters and journalists. However, other institutions cannot do that as they are not public service institutions, they are businesses and are there to make money. I think the BBC should decrease the price in the licence fee so that they can charge people online for those who do want to subscribe and get news daily. The delivery of the news for people who go on to the BBC website is for free currently; however other institutions are not happy about this. The BBC must give audiences more choice, for them to choose whether they would like for the BBC to take out money from the Licence fee to pay for the news that they provide. Not everyone that pays the licence fee uses the BBC website for news. So this would mean that they would be getting more money than they should get. Which is why I think that they should decrease the amount of the licence fee and set up pay walls for those who would like to pay and view news online.  

2)      Was Rupert Murdoch right to put his news content (The Times, The Sun) behind a pay wall?

Rupert Murdoch I believe was right to put up pay walls. This is because now those newspapers are in decrease due to new and digital media enhancing and becoming bigger than ever with billions of users online and on smart devices, people look forward and use the new technology available to read articles. We know this due to the vast increase of people becoming on line users. By 2015 it is said to be that there will be 3 billion people that will become online users. Some of which will be viewing news. So why not set up pay walls if people are moving from newspapers to tablets/smartphones if they were already paying for newspapers. This ensures that they still keep their income up so that they are able to pay professional journalists to look for and write up news for people who value it. However, due to not every institution not following on from his footsteps people have been getting used to getting their news free from other institutions. This would mean that they would not be interested in paying for news when they could go to another site to get it free. These institutions get their money from advertising. Which is why, I believe that most institutions if not all should go up on pay walls, if not some then all. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jQxGe_uDYgYDkZLo9Rc8FUgC6DAGsFoWt5qF_HVYdgQ/edit

http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/times-digital-subscribers-reach-140-000-as-paywall-project-reaches-maturity

News Values

Familiarity:

Familiarity is whether the news is culturally close to us in Britain. We see changes here due to new and digital media as now we are able to use social networking sites such as Twitter to see whether the British public is tweeting about it. News reporters will be able to view what has been trending on twitter by the British public and are able to see whether it is worthy and if its interests the British public as the British want to see what they want to see.

Amplitude:

Old fashioned news used to be a bit late with any big events that may happen due to them not knowing about it as it may be a private event which may have been hosted by specific group. This would have meant that news would have been behind with the event. Now that new and digital media has come round, many of the certain people that do decide to organise or go to a certain event they will communicate on social networking sites.  News institutions are now able to go online and use new and digital media to their advantage. This would be done through looking at the most visited social networking sites like Facebook and see what’s been shared a lot. Facebook also have pages where people would be able create the page and write down all the details of the event like where it will be held for example. This would then be shared and news institutions will come across the page due to the amount of people viewing, liking and sharing the page. The page would also ask users if they will be attending which adds on to a list of how many people may be attending exactly. Due to this the news would be able to know if an event will be happening before hand and will know all about it like its purpose. They would also be able to see whether it is a big event judging by how many people will be attending.

Frequency:

News used to get their information of how long the event was by either interviewing people that have been to the event and have experienced it or by being there themselves. Now that new and digital media is available to people and institutions they are now able to see for themselves first hand. This being done by new and digital media as people who have been to the event would be able to record it then post it online on websites like YouTube. News institutions would be able to view the videos which were uploaded either professionally by the event hosts themselves or by the people that have attended. News institution would be able to get their information by simply watching what has happened in the event and how long it was and all other information that they are able to get form the videos they have viewed. They can then set up the news for the event that’s happened from information obtained from videos of how long it was and how long it had lasted. However, this could also be a bad event for example a murder.

Predictability:

News which had been predicted would have been obtained through interviewing people by journalists. Through new and digital media news institutions are not able to surf the internet and see what kind of views people have and what they predict may happen. For example predicting who would be elected for prime minister. News institutions would be able to make a judgment by viewing who’s trending the most on social networking sites by using simple hash-tags. Through this news institutions are able to make a judgement and predict who may win the elections that may take place. With the research they have found they are able to put into their news to show people as it would be a big interest to them. This is because audiences would want to know who may become prime minister. News institutions would also have viewed audience’s predictabilities as people now have more freedom and power due to new and digital media which means news institutions are able to view audience’s views on who may win, to see audience’s predictions. 

Internet data plan back on political agenda

There is now a law which forces firms to send information to the police which could help them majorly with any types of crime. The frims must provide the police with as much informations as possible, if not everything. This could be anything from people using the internet on their phones or on their computers which enables to police to verify who the person behind the phone or computer is. This would make the polices jobs easier and better as they'll be sure to catch who ever is behind any illegal activity.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/79208000/jpg/_79208649_4b4b6c99-b148-4f51-b36d-862f277e59ff.jpg

• A new law for firms to provide police with inforomation 
• Makes investigations easier
• Stops criminals 

I believe that this is god as police would be able to catch people in the act and have evidence which was provided by the firms. This would mean that police would be able to tackle any criminal activity and catch the people behind them in the act or with hard evidence to out them away or to make an arrest. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30166477

Google Contributor : can i really pay to remove ads?

Google have now revealed that people would be able to remove the ads that they post up. Google gets most of their money through advertisements, whoever some of Googles web browsers do not like the fact that they keep seeing adverts everywhere. Google have not made this available to everyone as they have only made it through invite. Google will invite some people for them to take part in this advert removal from google. They will let the internet users decide how much they would want to pay for it. This is from 1-3 dollars in the US.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/11/21/1416574807135/fcc6ddd6-a9c5-494c-8822-0693f0a67ac2-620x372.png

• Cost 1-3 dollars
• All adverts will be removed
• Not available to all 

I believe that this is a good method of satisfying those web users who hate advertisements and would actually pay for them to be taken off. Google will be getting money from them monthly. The users that don't mind will carry on as usual as they never had a problem with them in the first place. This creates the best for both worlds apart from the people that are advertising their business as their target audience online will be decreased. 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/21/google-contributor-pay-remove-ads

Tesco Clubcard looks to find perfect presents on Twitter through Secret Scan-ta

Tesco will be working with a company which allows them to get informations o that people who are on twitter will be able to find presents which they would like for christmas for their friends via twitter. the company that Tesco will be working with is 'we are social'. They will assist tesco through producing the app which will help fellow tweeters find whats best for their friends. This would be done so that they are able to sell the products that they find to the people they want to buy presents for which would make Tesco even more money for christmas this year.

http://www.thedrum.com/uploads/styles/home_page_featured/public/news/tmp/37015/tesco_secretscan-ta.jpg?itok=qxnobl-D

• Tesco will get more sales
• Tweeters will find best presents for friends 
• Twitter will have more people on twitter, more trends 

I believe that this app is quite useful as people will be able to find out what presents they would buy which their friends would like which would avoid them buying new presents. It will also help tesco by boosting up their sales and which would make them more money through the use of twitter and supplying information for their customers. 

http://www.thedrum.com/news/2014/11/20/tesco-clubcard-looks-find-perfect-presents-twitter-through-secret-scan-ta

population with internet access to pass 3bn next year.

It is said that by next year 2015 the current figure of 2.7 billion people that are currently online users who use the internet is said to increase hugely up to 3 billion. This is nearly half the worlds population. The figure is said to have increased due to the production of the mobile phone and tablet devices which are coming out. They are becoming increasingly more cheaper than ever with prices being as low as £99. This is all over the world. It is also estimated that by 2017 there will be around then nearly half of the population online with either a computer or phone maybe tablets that the amount would be increased to just over 3.7 billion online users.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03112/girl-phone_3112939b.jpg

• Currently 2.8 billion online users 
• estimated to increase to 3bn by 2015
• Estimated to increase to 3.7bn by 2017

I believe that the increase is due to infact technology becoming cheaper and cheaper. Most products are made from china where technology and parts are made cheaply aling side with the labour that they offer a t a very cheap price. This would mean that most of the world would soon be able to afford a communications device which will be able to connect to the internet which adds to the current amount of online users. I believe that by 2017 there will be well over more than 3.7bn users which will be online. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/11243324/Population-with-internet-access-to-pass-3bn-next-year.html

Build the wall analysis

Section 1:
In the first section the author David Simon, talks about how the internet is as we all see it as a free privilege. It allows us to access many different things which in this case he is talking about the news. The news can be seen and read through websites created and managed by newspapers themselves like the times and the sun. He also mentions how a newspaper and reading news online may not give the exact same experience as they are both different in many different ways, some negative and some positive.

Section 2 :
The second section is quite similar discussing how people are finding that buying newspapers is getting old, a bit old fashioned. People have now moved on and have started to purchase news online, however not everyone. People now prefer to access their news and to view their news online as it has many benefits to it. Furthermore most of the news online is free meaning they won't have to be paying for it. The section also discusses how the newspapers are getting more vulnerable.

Section 3 :
The third section was mostly talking about some facts and statistics that were used and mentioned in the section by the writer. This was done so that they can back up their points. For example "10 percent of the existing 210,000 Baltimore Sun readers, for example, who pay a subscription rate less than half the price of home delivery, or roughly $10, would represent about $2.5 million a year. Absent the cost of trucks, gas, paper, and presses, moneylike that represents the beginnings of a solid revenue stream"

Section 4:
In the last section of the article David talks about the risk of newspapers moving on to pay wall, making people pay for the news rather then giving it out for free online. He discusses how many of the newspapers will be following on and changing as they'll find that they won't be able to survive without paying people for their services. This is understandable due to people reading less newspapers meaning they wont be getting as much money as they once did. For them to survive them must result to putting up pay walls, as David says most newspapers will build that pay wall up.


In the article David talks about the pay wall and why newspapers would be putting up the paywall and how it would benefit both parties. he discusses why people are buying less newspapers due to new and digital media. How people are finding newspapers old-fashioned and how news online is more convenient. Which is true due to most people owning smart phones which they could access anywhere with a touch of an app. However, currently most newspapers are giving their news out for free, David says this would not be forever as they can not afford to do so due to the shortage of income the business are getting from their consumers who are the news readers.


Comment 1:

Most of the folks writing about the paywall issue are assuming that because only 5-10 

percent of the current online readership will sign

up for web content, it will be a failure. Actually, the folks behind the paywall effort don't care 

if anyone signs up for online content. 

The entire point is to push people into print subscriptions. It could be that some newspapers 

or groups won't even offer an online-only 

option. It will just be a free giveaway with print.

#3 Posted by Morgan Cartwright on Thu 16 Jul 2009 at 12:23 PM

Morgan disagrees with the whole pay wall idea as he believes it would be a failure as he say

only 5-10 percent of current online readers will sign up to these pay walls that they will force 

up on the people who read news on a daily basis. He believes that they should force people

to carry on the traditional way and make them pay fro print subscriptions. 

Comment 2 : 

will never pay for “news” again. Most news is not truly news - it is sensationalism, hype and 

deception. Most news is not balanced - every editor is biased. And it is not just that - I truly 

can not afford to pay for news. Academics, especially with tenure, got it made in the shade 

and may be able to afford to follow the “news” as they are funded and it does not come out 

of their pockets. The question comes down to this - do we want an informed public or not. 

The answer, at least right now, is no. If the public were truly properly informed the American 

people would not allow Wall Street to gut Main Street, would not believe the lies of “the 

terrorists are going to destroy our way of life” and would understand that it really makes no 

difference - except in perception - of who holds the title of chief cheerleader - oops I mean 

Commander in Chief, President, which should be renamed CEO of America Incorporated.

#9 Posted by Lawrence Turner on Fri 17 Jul 2009 at 11:55 AM

Here we see Lawrence saying that he will never ever pay for news again due to him 

believing that news that is published today is not truly news, he believes it's deception and 

not balanced at all. He also says that he is not able to pay for news as he simply cannot 

afford to pay for it. Here we see that he is against David, some people may also feel the 

same way about news and may not be able to afford it if all news was to be paid for. 

Comment 3:

Please do this. Authoritative resources are being lost in the wikipedia world.One mst go 

around the world to find authoritative on the groud reporting. I would pay for it, no question.

#8 Posted by Judy on Fri 17 Jul 2009 at 11:47 AM

Here we see a person who feels that paying is better than getting it free. Here we see a 

person who values news and knows the worth and what it takes to get the news. Which is 

why he believes that news should be paid for and that he does not mind paying as what 

you get for free would not be as good as what you are going to pay for. 



Conclusion: 


I do believe that news should be paid for. Newspaper corporations should in fact put up pay 

walls so that they are able to make money to pay what their audiences ask for which is in 

fact great news. Since the internet came a long i believe that newspapers were not quick to 

act with the change. This i must say to most of the newspapers.Now that people are so 

used to getting free news they do not want to change as they like the idea of something 

being free. Of course if newspapers decide to then change all of a sudden and begin to 

charge for the news they provide online, most readers will not be happy. This may be due 

to the fact that there is a lack of knowledge to readers knowing exactly where news comes 

from and how hard people like journalists work to go and get the news readers are informed 

daily about. Newsreaders take newspapers who supply free news for granted and see 

those who charge for example like newcorp as them trying to rinse out as much as they can 

get 

from readers. People must accept that news will not be supplied to the world for free and 

people will not work for these readers for free. These newspapers are business' they are 

not charities. If news was to be free it would mean that great journalists would be made 

redundant as news corporations would not be able to afford them. This would reduce the 

quality of news which is produced due to a shortage in journalists which are professionals 

at what they do. Paywalls should be put up for readers to be satisfied with the news they 

are currently receiving, or else news corporations will turn into "buzzfeeds" 

which dumbs down audiences through their ridiculous posts and articles which are 

pointless. So in conclusion I agree with David. Yes to pay walls!

David Cameron: Google, Facebook and Twitter have duty to take down extremist material

David Cameron says that the technology giants in the media being Facebook, twitter Google and the rest must be aware and face up to their responsibilities. they must check what they have online and must be responsible for taking down inappropriate material from on-line so that the website can be a safer place. Dave Cameron and the internet providers have agreed to put on a panic button for every users so that they are able to report inappropriate material so that broadband companies are able to do something about it or report it further towards the  companies that have them on their sites.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03106/david-cameron_3106329b.jpg

• terror related posting 
• new panic button for online users 
• 1000 terrorist posts which are terrorist breach acts

I believe that David Cameron is right to step up and complain and also take into consideration what's online. He also makes a point where companies must live up to their responsibilities and should try to make a contribution just like the broadband campanies installing a panic button. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/11230325/David-Cameron-Google-Facebook-and-Twitter-have-duty-to-take-down-extremist-material.html

Spotify CEO speaks out on Taylor Swift albums removal: 'I'm really frustrated'

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/11/spotify-ceo-taylor-swift-albums-daniel-ek

This was about the CEO of Spotify making his first comment about the Taylor Swift situation.

• Spotify chief executive Daniel Ek has responded to Taylor Swift’s decision to remove her albums from the streaming service with a blog post tackling what he describes as the “myths” of streaming music.
• In his post, Ek announced that Spotify now has 50 million active users, with 12.5 million of them paying for a monthly subscription.
• He added that Spotify has now paid out more than $2bn in royalties to labels and publishers.
• Ek also defended Spotify’s “blend” of free and subscription music, with Swift having removed her albums because the company refused to only make them available to its paying subscribers.
• Ek also claimed that a top artist like Taylor Swift can expect to earn $6 a year from Spotify streams

I think what Taylor Swift and her label did was not clever.They were making a lot of money out of this online streaming system and if they don't like that - well they have too because thats were the music industry has gone to now. 

1994 in technology: What the Internet, computers and phones were like 20 years ago

In this article it talks about how the internet has changed from back in 1994 till this present day in 2014. Some of the facts that the article talks about is how everything has changed for examples back in the day there was only about 10,000 websites online where people could go on to and do what they wanted to do. Whereas now there are over 45 billion websites which is a huge amount compared to how many there used to be. It also talks about how the internet was sonly used by scientists and scholars for research purposes. Compared to now people use it for communication and entertainment purposes which is what its used for by the majority of internet users.

http://imgick.syracuse.com/home/syr-media/width620/img/news/photo/2014/11/02/16242972-mmmain.jpg

• Internet had around 10,000 websites 
• Internet has over 45 billion websites
• Internet was only used for research purposes 

I believe that the internet has changed in many different ways not only for the bad but also for the good of the people that use it. There are many online internet users around 2.7 billion.  The internet has become for some unbearable to live without due to it being included in their daily routine. Phones and computers are checked every minute by some. Checking for status updates and many more.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2014/11/technology_history_internet_computers_phones_1994.html

Hungary’s prime minister scraps draft law taxing internet use

Hungary's prime minister had tried to put a tax on the internet that for each household that uses it or has access to the internet. This is due to the fact that the government is trying to attempt to get less users online. This is de to the fact that new and digital media such as the internet has allowed for people to become more free and voice their thoughts online for everyone to see. The government are currently trying to think of ways to cuts down on people using the internet by charging them taxes. They are trying to cut down on oppositional voices and now know how powerful new and digital media is and how influential it can be. Later on crowds and protestors arose to address this problem they may be facing in the future and protested for the government not to make this new legislation.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/10/31/1414749385709/Budapest-Hungary-people-m-011.jpg

• Hungary thinking of new internet tax
• Government worried about oppositional voices being heard
• Silencing people 

I personally think that is legislation should not be put out as the tax is unnessasry and only for the fact that the government are scared of what might happen if people were to carry on spreading their voices through the internet. People are allowed to say what they like when they like and how they like. the tax could affect some households in Hungary. 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/31/hungary-prime-minister-viktor-orban-scraps-draft-internet-tax-law

Tyga Slams ‘Gold Digger’ Blac Chyna: Hacks Twitter Over Drake Drama?

Here we have another hacking where professional singer/songwritter Tyger had been accused hacked into someones Twitter account. The star had hacked into his ex's Twitter account due to her tagging Drake in on a picture on instagram. Tyga was not happy about what she had done so had decided to hack  Blac Chynas Twitter account then tweeting this message 'I'm a gold digger & a cheater. I never really loved Tyga it was always about the money.'

http://pmchollywoodlife.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/blac-chyna-gold-digger-tyga-hack-led.jpg?w=600

• Tyga aged 21 
• Took place on the 28th october
• Blac did it to piss tyga off 

I believe that celebrities are setting bad examples to other who look up to them. By followers and fans of Tygas hey may take hacking peoples twitter accounts in to consideration when a problem arises. Celebrities take advantage of new and digital media so that they are able to humiliate and expose people online for everyone to see. 

http://hollywoodlife.com/2014/11/02/tyga-blac-chyna-gold-digger-hacked-twitter-rant/