Audience Profiling - Checkpoints
1. Demographic profiling is the most basic form of identifying the target audience. They can be grouped together based on age,class,gender etc.
2. Psychographic profiling is used often by advertisers. This is when the audience instead of being grouped in groups difficult to target is grouped based on their needs and motivations.
3. Avertisers nickname niche groups as it is an easier method of defining their target audience for example DINKYS (double income no kids yet).
Uses and gratifications - Checkpoints
1. Blumer and Katz suggested four motivations.
- Diversion - escape from daily life.
- Personal relationships - using media for emotional interaction.
- Personal identity - contructing their own identity from characters in media texts, and learning behaviour and values.
- Surveillance - information gathering.
2. Cultural code is when a particular text will appeal to A/B audience and another text to a C/D audience. This is based on the importance of socio-economic differences in shaping the ways in which an audience interprets a text.
Tuesday 27 November 2007
GUARDiAN ST0RY!
Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent
Tuesday November 27 2007
Companies could be infringing privacy if they dig up information about job applicants from social networking websites, an internet expert has warned.
John Carr, chairman of the UK Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety, believes that employers and education officials could be crossing the line when they look up information about applicants on the web.
"There are lots of rumours about young job applicants being screened on Google or even university tutors looking at people applying for further education," he said.
"If that really is happening, then it could be illegal - when the kids are posting a picture of a party, they are only doing it to let their mates look. They are not doing it for an application form."
Britain's data protection laws are intended to prevent private information about individuals from being used without their knowledge or control. Regulators say that accessing publicly available information over the internet would not necessarily breach the law, and that it remains the duty of the individual to protect information they put online.
"Essentially if an individual - a potential employer or university tutor - looked at someone else's profile on a social networking site, it would not be a breach of data protection," said a spokeswoman for the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), Britain's privacy watchdog.
However, it remains unclear whether organisations covertly accessing people's private web pages or email accounts would constitute a breach of the law. Last week the ICO issued guidance to users of social networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo, urging them to take their privacy more seriously. A survey found that although 71% of 14- to 21-year-olds did not want their future employers to look at their profiles on social networking sites, only 40% realised that their online activities could be traced indefinitely.
The trend for potential employers to look to the web to find out more about applicants is growing, while officials are cracking down more heavily on social networking activities. More than 1,700 public sector employees have been sacked or disciplined for their use of the internet or email in the past three years.
Earlier this year the owner of data search company Infofind was found guilty of impersonating officials from the Department for Work and Pensions to gather information about 250 people. The data was sold to debt collection agencies for as much as £1,000 a time. The company was fined £3,200 and ordered to pay £5,000 in costs.
Tuesday November 27 2007
Companies could be infringing privacy if they dig up information about job applicants from social networking websites, an internet expert has warned.
John Carr, chairman of the UK Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety, believes that employers and education officials could be crossing the line when they look up information about applicants on the web.
"There are lots of rumours about young job applicants being screened on Google or even university tutors looking at people applying for further education," he said.
"If that really is happening, then it could be illegal - when the kids are posting a picture of a party, they are only doing it to let their mates look. They are not doing it for an application form."
Britain's data protection laws are intended to prevent private information about individuals from being used without their knowledge or control. Regulators say that accessing publicly available information over the internet would not necessarily breach the law, and that it remains the duty of the individual to protect information they put online.
"Essentially if an individual - a potential employer or university tutor - looked at someone else's profile on a social networking site, it would not be a breach of data protection," said a spokeswoman for the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), Britain's privacy watchdog.
However, it remains unclear whether organisations covertly accessing people's private web pages or email accounts would constitute a breach of the law. Last week the ICO issued guidance to users of social networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo, urging them to take their privacy more seriously. A survey found that although 71% of 14- to 21-year-olds did not want their future employers to look at their profiles on social networking sites, only 40% realised that their online activities could be traced indefinitely.
The trend for potential employers to look to the web to find out more about applicants is growing, while officials are cracking down more heavily on social networking activities. More than 1,700 public sector employees have been sacked or disciplined for their use of the internet or email in the past three years.
Earlier this year the owner of data search company Infofind was found guilty of impersonating officials from the Department for Work and Pensions to gather information about 250 people. The data was sold to debt collection agencies for as much as £1,000 a time. The company was fined £3,200 and ordered to pay £5,000 in costs.
Tuesday 20 November 2007
Effects Theory...
What is the culture industry?
The culture industry refers to the rise of the media industries on society. The Frankfurt school argued that the rise in "culture industry" resulted in increased standardisation within society. Under capitalism, society controls almost everything and even culture is processed through the mass media as something which is bought and sold.
What do we mean by "desensitised"?
Critics have reffered to audiences becoming less sensitive to a text which has been over exposed as desensitised. It also refers to the changing social attitudes and expectations for example if a previously banned film was to be shown years later many people would no longer understand why it was initially banned.
The culture industry refers to the rise of the media industries on society. The Frankfurt school argued that the rise in "culture industry" resulted in increased standardisation within society. Under capitalism, society controls almost everything and even culture is processed through the mass media as something which is bought and sold.
What do we mean by "desensitised"?
Critics have reffered to audiences becoming less sensitive to a text which has been over exposed as desensitised. It also refers to the changing social attitudes and expectations for example if a previously banned film was to be shown years later many people would no longer understand why it was initially banned.
Saturday 17 November 2007
The Conversation..
The audience is now able to manipulate the media and make up their own mind, as Halloran said the audience can "conform, accomodate or reject" ideologies filtered to them.
Adorno explained how the media is dumbed down so even as individuals who can make up their own minds we become passive and collude in own opression. This helps to maintain the hegemony ideology in the media.
Even if the media is "dumbed down", media as a fourth estate still informs the pubic - as no one group has power. As the media questions decisions that have been made for the benefit of the general public.
Hoe can the position of the media be seen as "dumbing down" when infact its position of importance is rising? There is a clear contradiction in saying the media has "dumbed down" to then call it the fourth estate. The conflict in ideas here shows that the media is controlled by an elite group of society because...
The media simply presents ideas to its audience it tells no one to believe anything. Audience have several options to what they watch and read. The audience are active enough to make their own decisions.
Whilst this is true it has been proven in the past what kind of impact the media can have on a person. Rap music, a lot of criminals have admitted influence from music and in some cases video games.
I agree with the comment above. There is a heavy influence of the media especially if it became a fourth estate- it has a very high status.
The audience has the ultimate choice, so no matter what ideologies being fed by media moguls like Murdoch, we wont believe, its upto us. My choice, we are active and media literate.
Adorno explained how the media is dumbed down so even as individuals who can make up their own minds we become passive and collude in own opression. This helps to maintain the hegemony ideology in the media.
Even if the media is "dumbed down", media as a fourth estate still informs the pubic - as no one group has power. As the media questions decisions that have been made for the benefit of the general public.
Hoe can the position of the media be seen as "dumbing down" when infact its position of importance is rising? There is a clear contradiction in saying the media has "dumbed down" to then call it the fourth estate. The conflict in ideas here shows that the media is controlled by an elite group of society because...
The media simply presents ideas to its audience it tells no one to believe anything. Audience have several options to what they watch and read. The audience are active enough to make their own decisions.
Whilst this is true it has been proven in the past what kind of impact the media can have on a person. Rap music, a lot of criminals have admitted influence from music and in some cases video games.
I agree with the comment above. There is a heavy influence of the media especially if it became a fourth estate- it has a very high status.
The audience has the ultimate choice, so no matter what ideologies being fed by media moguls like Murdoch, we wont believe, its upto us. My choice, we are active and media literate.
GAURDiAN ST0RY...
The BBC has received more than 1,000 complaints about violence and references to the Hillsborough disaster in Tuesday night's episode of EastEnders.
The broadcaster has received 663 emails and phone calls about violent scenes of thugs attacking drinkers in the Old Vic with baseball bats, shown before the 9pm watershed. Character Honey Mitchell, who is heavily pregnant, was thrown to the floor.
A further 389 complaints were made about a reference in the same episode to the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy, in which 96 Liverpool fans died as a result of crowd congestion at an FA Cup semi-final in Sheffield.
John Beyer, the director of pressure group Mediawatch UK, said the representation of violence was "beyond the pale" for the timeslot and audience."It's a ratings game and they seem to be prepared to do anything to attract controversy," he said.
The BBC defended the episode, which started at 7.30pm after a warning and was seen by an average of 9.6 million people. However, the broadcaster has decided to edit some sequences for the Sunday afternoon omnibus.
"The climax to the storyline shown on Tuesday night was absolutely in line with our editorial guidelines for pre-watershed viewing," a BBC spokeswoman said.
"EastEnders, however, is aware that the audience mix on a Sunday afternoon can be different and is therefore is undertaking some editing while retaining the drama for this time slot."
She added that the BBC had edited the omnibus in the past, most recently in April when it removed a scene with a crying baby.
The BBC's response, published on its website, acknowledged that this was "a particularly dramatic episode", but argued the violence was "in the main, implied rather than explicit" and "in no way glamorised or glorified".
The broadcaster said the scene was over relatively quickly, with the rest of the episode focusing on the fallout, which saw Honey rushed to hospital. The BBC added that viewers were warned of the nature of the content through pre-programme announcements, billings and programme publicity.
The complaints about the reference to the Hillsborough tragedy were prompted by a comment by character Minty Peterson.
He told northerner and reformed soccer hooligan Jase Dyer: "Five years out of Europe because of Heysel, because they penned you lot in to stop you fighting, and then what did we end up with - Hillsborough."
The BBC response said Minty was actually reminding Jase that football hooliganism, such as that at Heysel in 1985, led directly to the fencing-in of fans at football matches and that this had tragic consequences for the innocent spectators at Hillsborough. The BBC added that it apologised if these remarks were misinterpreted or caused any offence.
The spokeswoman told MediaGuardian.co.uk the complaints tally did not include any phone calls from the early hours of this morning because of a technical problem.
The broadcaster has received 663 emails and phone calls about violent scenes of thugs attacking drinkers in the Old Vic with baseball bats, shown before the 9pm watershed. Character Honey Mitchell, who is heavily pregnant, was thrown to the floor.
A further 389 complaints were made about a reference in the same episode to the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy, in which 96 Liverpool fans died as a result of crowd congestion at an FA Cup semi-final in Sheffield.
John Beyer, the director of pressure group Mediawatch UK, said the representation of violence was "beyond the pale" for the timeslot and audience."It's a ratings game and they seem to be prepared to do anything to attract controversy," he said.
The BBC defended the episode, which started at 7.30pm after a warning and was seen by an average of 9.6 million people. However, the broadcaster has decided to edit some sequences for the Sunday afternoon omnibus.
"The climax to the storyline shown on Tuesday night was absolutely in line with our editorial guidelines for pre-watershed viewing," a BBC spokeswoman said.
"EastEnders, however, is aware that the audience mix on a Sunday afternoon can be different and is therefore is undertaking some editing while retaining the drama for this time slot."
She added that the BBC had edited the omnibus in the past, most recently in April when it removed a scene with a crying baby.
The BBC's response, published on its website, acknowledged that this was "a particularly dramatic episode", but argued the violence was "in the main, implied rather than explicit" and "in no way glamorised or glorified".
The broadcaster said the scene was over relatively quickly, with the rest of the episode focusing on the fallout, which saw Honey rushed to hospital. The BBC added that viewers were warned of the nature of the content through pre-programme announcements, billings and programme publicity.
The complaints about the reference to the Hillsborough tragedy were prompted by a comment by character Minty Peterson.
He told northerner and reformed soccer hooligan Jase Dyer: "Five years out of Europe because of Heysel, because they penned you lot in to stop you fighting, and then what did we end up with - Hillsborough."
The BBC response said Minty was actually reminding Jase that football hooliganism, such as that at Heysel in 1985, led directly to the fencing-in of fans at football matches and that this had tragic consequences for the innocent spectators at Hillsborough. The BBC added that it apologised if these remarks were misinterpreted or caused any offence.
The spokeswoman told MediaGuardian.co.uk the complaints tally did not include any phone calls from the early hours of this morning because of a technical problem.
Saturday 10 November 2007
GAURDiAN ST0RY
News media feels force of Musharraf crackdown
Declan Walsh in Islamabad
Thursday November 8, 2007
(Geo Logo)
Last Tuesday the owner of Geo, Pakistan's largest television station, sent an email to his senior editors.
"I have received [a] threatening telephone call last night from ISI," wrote Mir Shakil ur Rahman, referring to the powerful Inter Services Intelligence agency. "They have taken me to a house in Islamabad."
Mr Rahman did not describe what happened at the spy safe house, but the following sentence suggested it was not pleasant. "I would like to advise you to please follow the laws specially [sic] the newly promulgated law."
He also attached an email from "Sabir".
"Pakistan Army is the backbone of Pakistan, don't try to damage it, if u do, u and your family who have looted billions would be hunted down like rats," it read. "It will just take a few hundred people to smash ur studios, offices, vans."
(General Pervez Musharraf & George Bush)
As General Musharraf's emergency rule slides towards a second week, Pakistan's media barons are coming under intense pressure from his heavy-handed security forces - officially and unofficially.
Private TV channels have been pulled off air, stringent new laws prohibit stories that "ridicule" the president, and many journalists are wondering if the country's television revolution is over.
"News has become a contraband item," said Imran Aslam, president of Geo, whose four sister stations are off air. "Now it's like the old days when we used to tune into the BBC radio to find out what's happen in our own backyard."
Journalists and proprietors complain of threatening calls and emails, some by people claiming to be the Taliban. They are continuing to broadcast, sending stories by satellite and high-speed internet to a minority of wealthy viewers.
But with satellite dish prices soaring, most Pakistanis are in the dark, blind to the great dramas of the past week - clashes between police and lawyers, human rights activists behind bars, or the sight of their deposed chief justice, Muhammad Iftikhar Chaudhry, under house arrest in Islamabad.
(The Chief Justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry)
"The government's goal is to consolidate their position in the courts and not to allow protests grow," said veteran journalist Zaffar Abbas. "At the moment they seem pretty satisfied."
Film, cartoon and sports channels are allowed, as is Pakistan Television, the state news station, which presents an alternate reality.
The channel airs Musharraf speeches, anti-Indian propaganda and chat shows hosted by regime loyalists.
"Gen Musharraf is finally doing what President Putin did for Russia - stop democracy from turning into total chaos," wrote PTV presenter Ahmed Quraishi, who on his website this week blames the CIA for Gen Musharraf's woes.
Television has become hugely popular and politically influential in Pakistan. Newspapers have a small circulation, selling just 3m copies in a country of 165 million people, but the plethora of new TV stations offering 24-hour news and lively debate reaches tens of millions.
They came of age last March, when live coverage of anti-Musharraf rallies led by Justice Chaudhry stoked public outrage and brought floods of protesters onto the streets.
"It was a huge force in the restoration of the chief justice. It really motivated the public," said lawyer Kashif Ali Malik.
Now the government is leaning on owners like Mr Ur Rahman, demanding they adhere to a new "code of ethics" that effectively bars any criticism of Gen Musharraf, who used to boast of his love for the free press.
Journalists at the stations worry that they will be next to be arrested. In recent days, security forces have jailed thousands of lawyers, human rights activists and opposition figures.
"They have a hit list of six or seven senior journalists they want to arrest," said Hamid Mir, a popular presenter with Geo.
Newspapers are still being published, many carrying detailed reports of state brutality and angry comment, despite a new law prohibiting anything that defames or brings into disrepute Gen Musharraf or his government.
The editor of Dawn, a respected newspaper established by Pakistan's founding father Muhammad Ali Jinnah, said he would not be cowed.
"We are not in the business of ridicule, we are in the business of reporting the facts," said Abbas Nasir. "And if the facts make someone look ridiculous, so be it."
Tuesday 6 November 2007
In What Ways Do I Agree With Pluralism?
I agree with pluralism, despite there being many conglomorates and certain elitists such as Rupert Murdoch, there are a wide range of media resources for the audience to gain their information from to form an uninfluenced opinion.
These days audiences are more active so are able to manipulate the media and make their own minds up rather than accept ideologies filtered through shows. As Halloran said they are able to "comform, accomodate or reject" texts and ways of thinking.
Guardian Story
Channel 4 has been cleared of breaching broadcasting regulations over its decision to transmit an incident in which a Big Brother contestant used a racially offensive word to describe another housemate.
Nineteen-year-old Emily Parr was axed from the show by producers after making the comment to Charley Uchea early in this summer's Big Brother series.
Ofcom said Channel 4's decision to broadcast the incident was justified by the context of the show, adding that it had made clear that the language was "offensive and unacceptable".
Around 450 complaints were made after Parr's comment was broadcast in a Channel 4 highlights episode of Big Brother on June 7 this year.
Parr, from Bristol, was dancing with two of her fellow contestants on the night of June 6-7 when she said to Uchea: "You pushing it out, you nigger."
When she was challenged by the pair, Parr said she was joking, adding that she had black friends who called her that.
Parr was removed from the house the following morning, June 7. At the time of her disqualification, Channel 4 said Parr had used a "racially offensive word" and that she had acknowledged she should have been "more careful with her words".
But some viewers complained that Channel 4 had over-reacted by removing Parr from the house, and had failed its its duty of care to the reality TV contestant.
Channel 4 was also cleared today by Ofcom of any wrong-doing in a similar incident on this year's series of the reality show when a contestant was called a "poof".
The behaviour of the housemates and Channel 4 was under close scrutiny in the wake of the Celebrity Big Brother race row when the treatment of the Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty by Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O'Meara prompted 54,000 complaints and led to effigies being burnt on the streets of India.
"Ofcom has made clear in previous adjudications and findings that the broadcasters' right to broadcast such material and the audience's right to receive it is an important principle," said the regulator in its ruling today.
"It has been established over many series that the Big Brother audience expects to see all aspects of the housemates' characters exposed during their stay in the house.
"Channel 4 would not have been expected to keep key character information from viewers, since it is the viewers who decide who to vote for.
"By including these scenes, Channel 4 offered viewers an insight into all the housemates' characters, not just Emily Parr's. In Ofcom's view this context is in line with the editorial content of the series and audience expectations."
The regulator said the programme had made clear that the use of that particular word was "offensive and unacceptable ... Ofcom therefore considered that there was appropriate justification and there was no breach of the code".
Separately, around 200 viewers complained after two incidents in which another Big Brother contestant, Laura Williams, called housemate Liam McGough a "poof".
Viewers who complained said the word was as offensive to the gay community as the word used by Parr was to the black community.
Channel 4 told Ofcom that "very careful consideration" had been given to its inclusion in the show.
But the broadcaster said that it had underestimated the offence it caused viewers after the first comment was aired.
When it was repeated, Big Brother called Williams into the diary room to reprimand her for her language, and she was later evicted from the house by viewers.
Channel 4 said the decision to broadcast the comment had been considered at senior levels in both the channel and the production company, Endemol.
In its ruling, Ofcom said: "For the broadcaster, the important distinction had been made that Laura Williams, in contrast to Emily Parr, had not used this term directly against a gay housemate (Liam McGough is not gay) and it had been very clear that the gay housemate whom it had been used in front of had not been offended by her use of the term, unlike Charley Uchea in the Emily Parr incident."
The regulator said there was "insufficient or no evidence to suggest that Laura Williams used the word ... in a denigratory way".
The comments were included in Big Brother updates on Channel 4 broadcast on July 1 and July 4.
Ofcom said it was "not possible or appropriate at present to establish definitively the degree of offence use of the world 'poof' can cause in all contexts".
But it said it was "sympathetic" to the concerns voiced by complainants about the use of the word, and reminded broadcasters to "exercise care about the frequency with, and context in, the word is broadcast".
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