Tuesday 22 April 2008

Daily Sport unveils £1m redesign

Daily Sport unveils £1m redesign

The Daily Sport has relaunched itself as the "last bastion of man", aiming for a "sexy rather than sleazy" look.
The paper will now focus exclusively on sport, girls and funny stuff, avoiding showbusiness content and moving its adult entertainment editorial and advertising into a separate pull out.
"If it is not about sport, if it is not about girls and does not make you laugh, then don't bother," said Barry McIlheney, the editor-in-chief of parent company Sport Media Group, explaining his editorial policy.

I find this story relevant as I believe it makes a very relevant point. That point being the fact that the main audience that is being targetted is males. This portrays the idea of a patriarchy and shows that targetting a male audience is more likely to appeal to mass audiences. Sports, girls and funny stuff is aimed specifically at males and can be shown to have a mysognistic point of view.

Sunday 13 April 2008

Media guardian story!! - Financial Times hit by chilly climate

Financial Times hit by chilly climate

The Financial Times finally succumbed to the downward sales trend afflicting the quality daily newspaper sector last month, recording a 1.3% year-on-year circulation decline.

I found this story relevant to comment on as I feel it is quite important. Newspapers are becoming less popular by the day and the internet, phones and podcasts are beginning to dominate now. Newspaper are declining all the time and this story emphasises the dominance of the technological market. Even things such as detailed financial information, is becoming more readily available on the internet.

Tuesday 1 April 2008

MPs attack Google's web vetting record

Google's vice-president, Kent Walker, came under fire from MPs today after admitting that his company does not employ a single person to proactively vet online content and for failing to censor a YouTube video of a gang rape.
One member of the Commons culture, media and sport committee called Walker "objectionable" after he attempted to defend the mistake by YouTube, the popular video sharing website owned by Google, over the gang rape.
Walker admitted that footage of a gang rape, reported to be of a woman in south London being set upon by a group of teenagers, received 600 page views before it was taken down from YouTube last month.

I find this story very relevant as I think it links to the idea of hegemony. Youtube is a massive company and allowing these videos to be shown is drip-feeding the ideology into the public that this type of footage is acceptable. Although it was a mistake on youtube's part, it still re-inforces these ideologies and therefore there is a likelihood that it will influence people. Youth crime is already a major issue and by showing these violent images, they are almost showing methods of how to achieve these specific things and therefore are having a negative influence. These kind of issues are also likely to raise a moral panic amongst society and therefore allowing videos like this to be shown illustrates the harsh reality behind these issues and therefore scares people alot more.