Rodrigo Alves removed from CBB house - The importance of Ofcom.

Rodrigo Alves removed from CBB house - The importance of Audience attention.


Last week, Rodrigo Alves, or 'the human Ken Doll' was removed from the Big Brother house for his recent antics in the house and on the show. It is reported that "The scenes were so shocking Channel 5 bosses took the decision not to show them" (The Sun). It would seem the producers of the programme deemed the content inappropriate, despite the post watershed airtime and renowned controversial content of the programme, suggesting the severity of this case.

This situation also followed their choice to air his use of the N-word on the second show. More than 1000 people are reported to have complained to Ofcom, further highlighting the importance of the audience in modern day content.Back in the eight week period where the UK was gripped by the ITV 2 hit show Love Island, Ofcom received over 2,500 complaints over a scene in the show where Dani Dyer was shown a video of her boyfriend Jack being reunited with one of his ex partners.

It could be said that these cases prove the power of the public behind the production of TV. The removal of Rodrigo was undoubtedly the right decision, but it is interesting how this comes after these complaints. This also occurred when the producers of Love Island scrapped further plans for the show which they thought would cause similar issues. The producers find themselves at the mercy of the public with all TV programmes, but even more so if the content is the talk of the country while its on, as it has been the last two years of Love Island and arguably while Big Brother is on.

There is the argument that the more controversy there is surrounding a TV programme, the more people and the better the ratings the programme will in turn receive. it is the burden of the producers and editors to find the balance in the TV show so the hype doesn't disband. In this age it is so important to gain the presence on social media, but often the way to gain this is by controversy. In the ever developing media world, it is only going to become more difficult to break through and grab the audience with something new without it being a little out there.

Jeremy Clarkson's sacking by BBC

"The end of the road for Top Gear? May and Hammond pay tribute as BBC sacks Jeremy Clarkson for 'unprovoked' 30-second attack that sent producer to A&E - and police demand to see report" 

Article -  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3010167/Top-Gear-presenter-Jeremy-Clarkson-sacked-BBC-internal-investigation-concludes-did-attack-producer-steak-dinner-fracas.html 

Jeremy Clarkson was announced fired on Thursday the 26th of March. the cause of his sacking is an alleged attack (fracas according to the media) on one of Top Gear's producers Oisin Tymon. The event occurred after a 40 minute argument between the two when Clarkson felt aggravated by the restrictions of food at the end of a work day. The removal of Clarkson came as a shock to the world due to the popularity of the programme, which is "sold in over 200 countries, bringing in about £50 million a year" watched by around 375,000,000. However, it has been suggested that the reason that he had to go was that it was a battle between upholding the key principles and ideologies that BBC aim to convey and keeping a beloved, albeit controversial TV presenter on a successful show. 

In the end it was in fact the principles that were apparently more important to the BBC's director Lord Hall and the Global company, as Clarkson was fired after a few weeks of speculation. the reason that this story has an importance of New and Digital Media is that there was outrage online and there was even a petition that called for the reinstatement of Clarkson as the shows primary host. The petition was a huge success with over 1 million people signing it. This petition was a link that went viral on social networking sites and was shared via Facebook and Twitter to reach such a large amount of people. This shows that news is past via word of mouth (person to person) just as much as the conventional methods in the new and digital era.

Some may suggest that this is a poor decision by the BBC because of the amount of money that he and the show make for the BBC, however as I've mentioned, the ideologies and reputation of the BBC itself is more important than one show for the future. There have been many issues that the BBC have had with Clarkson over the last couple of years, with the uproar regarding the alleged use of the 'N' word in a nursery rhyme style comparison between two cars in one of the shows broadcasted by the BBC in 2014. therefore these sort of problems have led up to this and you could argue that it was expected now or in the near future.

How is 'The Sun' adapting to new and digital media

The sun online is a subscription based website where you can observe exclusive content and extra content as well as the print content, this extra content is in the form of videos and galleries etc. The subscription fee is less than £8 a month and less than £2 a week. With the paper 30p a day, if you bought one every day including their Sunday copy, it would work out at £2.10 so you can see why one would subscribe.

This could be seen as successful as they reached the 225,000 subscribers milestone in 2014. This is an increase from 100,000 in 2013. This is good because it costs them less to make than printing due to complete lack of it, they also still have adverts and also there are more because of those for the videos.

But is this having an impact on their print sales? After all the aim of a newspaper is to sell mainly in their print platform, isn’t it? On Friday the 7^th of November there was an article in the Guardian that read “The Sun slips below 2m daily sales for the first time in 43 years” this shows that there is an impact on the print sales as the subscriptions online grow. This could also be due to the app because you get the online content coupled with that of the print content. It could be said that the reason for this is that people as young as 10 has an iPad or iPhone now, therefore they are the target audience of this app.

The fact that the younger generations are growing up with this technology plays a major part in the depletion of sales. This could be due to our generation’s laziness of not buying a paper, but it’s more likely that it is simply that we have grown up with the technology and it is simple to use for us. Nevertheless, I would think that there will be a further decline in sales of the print edition as the older generations stop buying the paper, or sadly, they pass away and the younger generations are much more likely to increase use of technology over print.

You could argue that in this new and digital era, the days of print are ending and E-media is taking over, with the use of videos and other digital features, the interactivity is becoming increasingly more important to the audience for feeling as if they are getting their money’s worth. The online platform also has the perk of archive articles., The Newspaper has a limited number of pages, also once discarded, the paper and its content are disregarded in the world, however online, you can access articles from years ago. 

Citizen journalism - it's affect on the news

original article - http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/feb/21/chelsea-fans-who-shouted-racist-chants-at-london-station-sought-by-police

The reason why I have chosen to write a blog about this story is because of the sheer outrage it has caused among both the football world and also general life. The story tells of a group of Chelsea football club supporters in a Paris metro station who would not allow access to a black man on the train they were on. They repeatedly pushed him off the train after the clash between Paris Saint Germain and Chelsea earlier that night. They were also heard chanting such things as “We’re racist and that’s the way we like it”.

This is a prime example of how citizen journalism has revolutionised the access to stories such as this. If this event was not caught on the smart phone of a fellow passenger then the story of this horrendous event would never have come to the attention of the world. This shows that citizen journalism has improved the variety of the stories that news publications can now utilise to create stories. The only stories that would be shown to the public are ones that journalists had the time to get to or the story is ongoing with updates leaving time for the preparation of journalists, however, this would directly contradict the Galdung and Ruge’s news convention of immediacy, where the news should be instantaneous. This would only be possible with celebrities and other icons because these are the people who are always watched, citizen journalism now means there is full world coverage.

It could also be argued that this story is only being covered because of Galdung and Ruge’s convention of how close the news is to where it’s happening. By this premise, the reason that there is coverage, or so much of it for this story over others is that it is happening near us. Also it is directly relevant to us as it involves British people. 

Google glass - globalisation

original article - file:///C:/Users/Chris's%20Pc/Downloads/MM47-google-glass-globalisation-p31.pdf (page 31)

What is Google glass?

Google glass is wearable technology with an optic head-mounted display developed, clearly by Google. The technology allows you to observe your world but it also "acts as your mobile phone and provides you with all the functions you'd expect, but also allows you to utilise a range of new features". This is essentially revolutionizing the hands free world with the mobile capabilities it offers. One of the extra features that it offers you is the display on one of the lenses. This allows you to see the world in two ways, one of these is simply by your eyes but the other is through Google. The display shows the information of landmarks around you, quite alike that of the glasses you'd expect James Bond to be given in one of his adventures.

Why is it cool?

One of the main advantages of the Google Glass is that it is made and supported by Google. This is a huge advantage because it is the most powerful internet influence and is therefore connected everywhere. This means that you can get information on nearly everything, anywhere you happen to be. Another reason that Google Glass is pretty groovy is the voice recognition software combined with the display on the lens. The fact that you can ask your glasses to take you to a location without any work on your part is a pretty cool idea.

Are there any limitations?

One of the things that limits the success of Google Glass is that the cost of the Glasses were £1000. This, by global standards is a lot of money. This means that it will not sell very well, especially when people can get a bluetooth set for under a fiver. This could be why Google have decided, as of January, that it will not be sold anymore. Another limitation that may have caused this to occur is the challenge against Globalisation. Although, as i have mentioned Google has reached a point where they are so widely used and, as the article states "Google is, of course, now a household name...  ‘I’ll Google it’ is now an umbrella term to mean ‘I’ll go and look it up online’." there is still 60% of the world without internet and this means that it is useless for the people in these areas of the world.