Has Facebook Changed The World?

Has Facebook changed the world? 

Uprising of the Arab Spring (December 2010) 

• Started in Tunisia.
• Ben Ali is the leader of Tunisia (Dictator).
• Tunisia was a police state.
• If you were to question the Government you were going to prison to be beaten and tortured. 
• Ben Ali - Worth £3.5 billion. 
• Ben Ali ruled Tunisia for 24 years, however it had only taken 28 days for him time to come to an end. 

Press Censorship 

• Government decide what is allowed to be shown on the news.
• Control the ordinary people in the country.

Corruption 

For example, The man who owned the stall ( Mohammed Buazizi) 

• He attempted to protest which was then not allowed to be shown on the TV. 
• However it was seen online due to the mobile phone recordings of the event. 

Internet E.g. Social Media and Blogs  

• The people of Tunisia shared hatred of their president on the internet such as Facebook, Twitter and bogs. 

The Internet 

• 1/4 of homes in Tunisia have broadband and 90% own a mobile phone.
• The Internet holds and infanent number of pathways to communicate with others. 
• If you were caught in Tunisia posting online you would face torture and detention. 
• 2 million Facebook users in Tunisia 20% of Tunisia active on Facebook. 
• Protesters videos went viral. 

Protest

• Within days of the protest it was available to everyone to view due to the mobile phone recordings. being posted on Facebook. 
• The people in Tunisia used twitter in order to inform everyone where the police were stationed. 
• Live streaming of protests in Tunisia.
• Unarmed protesters were shot dead. 
• 150 died from the protest.
• Ben Ali gave a speech in order to win his country back
• 15th of January Ben Ali conducted a television Public relation campaign. 
• Protester videos went viral.
• Al Jazeera - Leading Arab channel in the world had shown the protest due to the online streams and social media posts. 

Saleem and Azeez 

Two university students who were in the front line and started the protest. 

• 1 pm on the 6th of January Saleem and Azeez were arrested. 
• 10,000 people protested outside where Saleem and Azeez were arrested the day before they were released. 
• Hacked the union website - telling them about the protest and telling them where it is going to take place. 

Rise of Social Media 

• TV being old media is now not effective anymore due to the rise in social media. 
• Internet is immediate.
• No single, central hub can shut down the internet like they can shut down TV stations.

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Articles/Detail/?id=174227

Yes

The conflict was effectively fought between two opposing forces. Government hackers broke into the Facebook and email accounts of active Tunisian bloggers to prevent them from spreading information about what was happening in Sidi Bouzid, the cradle of the revolution. Unexpectedly, the government was also able to remove the https secured protocol from major Internet browsers in order to expose any bloggers that dared to post anything online. As a result, some bloggers were arrested.

This article tells us that the revolution would still of happened without Facebook as the Tunisian Government were able to hack into the Facebook https and block any blogging from taking place and therefore being able to find out the bloggers and then arrest them. However Twitter was the most effective as when someone was to re tweet something it is then harder for the government to get rid of it such as, letting the protesters know where the police are located. 

No

As of 2012, Internet use and social media penetration were extensive in Tunisia. In a population of 10,732,900, 39% are Internet users and 31% are Facebook subscribers. This allowed social media platforms like Facebook to make a telling contribution to the 2011 revolution, signaling the emergence of a new means of public empowerment through the Web.

This article then tells us that having Facebook allowed the audience to empower the government of Tunisia as there were 39% of the Tunisia population active on Facebook therefore this then allowed them to create protests through social media. 

My opinion 

My opinion whether i believe that the Revolution would of taken place without Facebook is that I believe that due to the 39% of Tunisia's population being active on Facebook this would then make it easier for them as a nation to come together and plan ahead without the government being able to track and stop them. However once the government had released where the public were communicating from they were then able to hack in blogging and delete them before the public were able to get a hold of them. However I believe that social media played a big part within this revolution and also I believe this revolution would not have taken place without social media but, my main social media website for this revolution which was the most effective was twitter. The reason for this was that the government would not be able to cancel the URL links of the tweet as they may of deleted the main post however once someone has re tweeted in order to attract more of an awareness this would then not allow the government to be able to delete all the re tweets. Concluding I believe that without social media itself this revolution would not have been possible however, I still believe without Facebook this revolution would have taken place as, i believe the main source and most effective contact could be done through Twitter. 

BT

BT sorry for poor TV service after launch of sports channel

BT have apologized to their subscribers to their sport channel as they provided very poor TV service on the opening weekend of their channel. BT invested £1 billion in order to show 38 live top premier league games this season. However they received complaints form their customers as they were not able to provide the quality of service that they were expected. BT TV have received more than double on compliments within one month then they had received in their previous three months of being in business. This information was provided by Ofcom as they were the one who received the complaints. 

• The rate of complaints per 1,000 subscribers was more than 10 times that at Virgin and more than 20 times the rate at Sky.

Ofcom had stated the complaints about BT TV started to increase in August mostly around the 1^st of August which was when the new premier league season was meant to get underway. The complaints Ofcom received were half about the new BT sport channel.

·         BT sport has paid £738 million in order to gain the rights to show 38 premier league games for this season.

·         They also splashed out £897 million in order to gain all rights of the champion’s league football from 2015 on wards, being their biggest deal yet

·    A spokeswoman for BT apologised to BT TV customers who suffered poor service during the summer. "The main reason for this was the unprecedented volume of interest in BT Sport and our efforts to provide availability on multiple TV platforms in a very short space of time.

Global Radio

Global Radio backs down over Competition Commission ruling

Radio broadcaster to sell some of their stations next year in order to meet the competition ruling therefore looking to put them in the loss of £70 million. 

Global Radio the UK's largest broadcaster have now been told by regulators that they must sell stations based in seven areas of the UK due to the competition concerns of the purchases last year of the third largest networks being, real and smooth networks.

In November the CAT dismissed the appeal which was put through by global radio over the commission ruling which was given to Global radio in  May. 

• Radio Global called the regulators "outdated" after they denied the appeal processed by the radio station. 
• On Friday on global have put through a statement saying they will not appeal against the decision which has been made by the CAT. 
• They also stated they will be selling their seven stations in "early 2014".
• The competitions commission had noted that it believed, the UK's second largest radio station would fall short if they attempted to take on GMG radio's station. 
• Furthermore the third biggest radio station talk sport, offered a low sum for Global radio but however were outbid by GMG radio. 

Daily Mail

Daily Mail overtakes Sun as biggest-selling Saturday paper

The Daily Mail have become the UK's biggest selling Saturday newspaper for the first time in their history. They beat Octobers winners The Sun to this milestone. The Daily Mail sold 20,000 more copies then The Sun in November. From Monday to Friday in November The Sun had sold an average of 2,089,752 copies whereas, the Daily Mail had an average of 1,755,308. The difference between the The Sun and the Daily Mail is that the Daily mail sell their newspapers in bulk to places such as, airlines, rail companies, hotels and gyms. These businesses would pay Daily Mail for their newspapers which they would then serve to the public for free. However The Sun does not offer this facility. 

The Daily had received a higher headline circulation but only by a narrow difference. 

• The Daily Mail had received an average headline circulation of 2,474,439 
• The Sun had received a headline circulation of 2,453,981
• Ronland Agambar from the Daily Mail had said " While we have out sold The Sun on Saturday previously, this is the first time we have achieved better sales over the course month". This shows that this is a huge achieved for the Daily Mail moving forward. 

The Guardian and the Daily Mail were the only two titles to increase their sales in October and November leaving titles such as The Sun declining in sales. 

• The Guardian averaged a circulation of 0.44% in October and November therefore going up to 199,672.
• The Guardian News and Media title's a third successive monthly increase. 

The Sun

The Sun attracts 117,000 paying subscribers to its Sun+ digital service

On the 1st of August The Sun added a new digital version app of their newspaper which has a £2 a week charge to use every week. The Sun have now attracted 117,000 people to purchase their app since the !st of August. The Sun believe they will need to attract around 250,000-350,000 users in order for them to break even. One reason for this is due The Sun showing premier league highlights therefore setting them back quite a bit. 

• The Sun newspaper had already gathered a impressive 100,000 digital subscribers in only four months.
• It had taken The Times and Sunday Times a year to reach 100,000 digital subscribers when they opened their digital newspaper in 2010. 
• 47% of the download was through mobile devices. 
• The sun had predicted that the facility would be most popular on desktop computers. 
• Sun+ target market is split 60% being male and 40% being women. however The Sun believe the male target market will increase when they start the football promotions. 

The editor of The Sun David Dinsmore believes that The Sun are unique as they are they are the only newspaper company that have thought of the idea to charge for their online access to their newspaper. He believes this facility will allow The Sun to create a mass audience. He went to carry on saying that The Sun are only targeting this facility at the UK as they believe their is enough people in the UK to allow them to maximize their audience. The Sun are also now hiring a social media team says David Dinsmore as, he believes that the future is within social media and it is now the biggest and most effective way to advertise.

• The Suns biggest target market group being 30% will be people aged from 25-34. 
• Chief marketing offices Katie Vanneck of News UK said " Blows out the myth young people won't pay for digital content. 

The Virtual Revolution Episode 2 Part 1 

• 1/4 of the planet's population is connected to the worldwide web.
• Web has set information free, we see this through ordinary people fighting for freedom and democracy.
• Stephan Fry - The web is a powerful tool for the states it allows them to monitor and control us. 
• Martha Lane Fox - Co-Founder of Lastminute.com - We are only at the beginning to see how to power balance will shift.   
• The brief history of the web is littered with new applications that have unintended consciences. 
• Twitter was developed in San Francisco in 2006  

Twitter 

• Iran June 2009, In he aftermath of a presidential election opposition supporters poured out onto the street to vent their anger of what they saw as a rigid contest. 
• The Iranian state hit back with with a riot police and a ban on any media reporting inside of the country.
• Protesters then turned to twitter to tell the world what was happening.
• In extraordinary circumstances 2 million tweets were sent out of Iran in the first week by half a million people.  
• 200 thousands tweets about Iran were posted every hour.

The development of new/digital media means the audience is more powerful in terms of consumptions and production. Discuss the arguments for and against the view.

The development of new/digital media means the audience is more powerful in terms of consumptions and production. Discuss the arguments for and against the view.

The development of new and digital media can be argued that it has allowed the audience to become more powerful in the way in which they are able to provide and produce materials through digital media. the development  of new and digital media has now allowed audience to now have interaction within creating media and also having their say about the subject such as the their point of view of the news. Also due to the increase of development within new and digital media it allows the audience views to be valued as they are able to create a fan base. This would mostly be conducted through social media, one in four people around the world use social media. This then allows the audience to be given the power by others around the world who notice them on social media.

Marxism would believe that the media have dumbed down their output and construct texts simply to generate mass audience. News corporation make a revenue of $33 billion, the reason I believe that they are so successful within the newspaper industry is due to the changes they make in order to keep their readers. The red top newspapers such as The Sun are able to appeal to its audience as it presents its content it such a way which provides the audiences with what they want to read. This would related to Stuart halls theory of preferred reading as News Corporation would present their text in such a way which allows the reader to engage within the text. I then believe that the big companies such as news corporation are still more powerful than the audience as they are able to adopt in which they are able to manipulate the audience into believing what they want them too.

The Great Leveller is a documentary by Alek’s Krotoski which focuses on the virtual revolution and change within the internet over the years. The documentary was filmed in 2012. One of the quotes which was from Bill Gates as he stated, Internet had become the way to communicate, it has become a brain. The internet is now the place in which people communicate with one another whether they are from the other side of the world or standing in the same building. 5 million people use dating websites, this statistic shows us that more and more people are not starting to look for relationships and marriages through the internet. According to my perspective, one of the ways which I believe the audience is more powerful due to the change in new and digital media is the way in which the audience are able to communicate with one another for example, a normal person could go onto to a dating website and search what he is looking for in someone else this then allows someone to find the match of their choice.

Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation quoted that “The Internet had given the readers much more power… the world is changing and newspaper have to adapt.” Due to the change and development of the internet it is now showing that the big name companied are having to make the change in order to keep up with the public. Due to the change in new and digital media news can now be present by anyone and be shared fasting then newspapers are able too. An ordinary person is now can now be at the scene of the crime faster than a news reporter and record the incident and post it up online on a social media site. Whereas a newspaper would have to wait for the next day until they are able to publish their story to the world, by the time they are able to do this the story would then have become old news. The way in which the newspaper have showed their adaptation towards the change within the shift of power and the internet is, that these newspapers have created online websites which are free to the users. The reason for this change is due to the public being able to provide the same content instantly and free to their viewers. However the public knowing the information is free on websites such as the guardian they are more likely to trust that source rather than an ordinary person.

According to Murdoch the change of power has now shifted as one example of this is the user generated content. One example of this is the Rodney King story where he was brutally assaulted by the police as they chased him as he knew he was going back to prison. He was hit 53 times resulting in him being left severely injured. This piece of user generated content shows a sign of realism as the incident was recorded by an ordinary person on his camcorder which was then published online. This then had more of an impact on society then if the story was to be published by an actual reporter as, the footage was able to shows the actually event that had taken place this then had more of an impact as the video had trended worldwide through social media. The reason it was so popular instantly is because the footage was trusted by the audience as they knew no part of the story was hidden as it was all present to them from the recording. This then shows the shift in power as ordinary people can now make their own news story and be able to post them faster than an actual news reporter could. This is because once an ordinary person is able to record an incident and then within seconds from their smartphone, the story is then able to go viral.

Another way which the newspapers have adapted in order to change of new and digital media. The daily mail have used the Us Vs Them campaign as a way in which to attract viewers. The campaign is about how the daily mail hate everyone as from the tittle is states that it is the daily mail Vs the rest. The reason this website will be a positive for the daily mail as it will allow them to generate a larger audience. For example The Us Vs Them is expected to reach views of 3 million users during October. This would then benefit the Daily Mail as it would allow them to increase the amount of users they will receive as once one person has completed the questionnaire they would then tell a friend about it. This is due to the Daily mail allowing the audience to share their answers on Facebook and Twitter. This then allows the audiences fans/friends on their social media site to be able to come across this and then take the survey themselves. The daily mail have taken advantage over the increasingly growing social media as, by allowing the audience to publish their result on social media the daily mail are allowing the audience to protest against or for them saying whether they are hated by the daily mail or not. My perspective from here is that this shows that the audience are still not in control as major companies such as daily mail are able to change within the times and allow themselves to generate to views then they would of before, by using the audiences help with or without them realising they are helping the daily mail gain viewers.

Wikipedia is a page where articles are posted about famous people providing the public with information about them such as their birthday to their background. 65 million people use Wikipedia and 14 million people post articles on the site. It is a website which is made for ordinary people as it is free to use. It is argued that Wikipedia is inaccurate, as anyone is able to edit pages and change information about an organisation or individual. This is due to anyone being allowed access to Wikipedia pages and being able to change the information which is present for a company or individual. Critics may believe that Wikipedia articles are able to be posted by anyone therefore they are not reliable however, Wikipedia articles are verified by other accounts and users of Wikipedia to ensure the information is correct otherwise the information would then be deleted. Wikipedia is one of the most powering tool for the ordinary people as they are able to post information to over 65 million people. Also when someone is in need of information about an individual the first place they would be taken to would be Wikipedia.

In conclusion I believe that the change in new and digital media has now allowed audience’s to become more empowered due to the change in new and digital, one of these changings highly involved the increase of the use of social media, as this also relates to user generated content as this allows the audience to be able to create something and post it online allowing the audience to get noticed and get a fan base.