THOUGHTS ON WIKILEAKS

Wikileaks is a very morally and ethically “grey” area. On one hand, people may deserve to know the secrets of the world they live in. On the other hand, it assumes that privacy should only be enjoyed by the little people – i.e. People that have no secrets of interest. It has been said that Julian Assange is acting on the belief that “everyone should have access to everything” (Khatchadourian, R 2010 pp07) but I think that this is going a bit too far. Does the general public have the right to see what happened during the Apache helicopter shooting? (Khatchadourian, R 2010 pp07) – Probably. Should Sarah Palin have the content of her e-mail account made available for everyone to see? (Tabi 2010) – I don’t think so. It could come down to personal vs. organisational privacy. Big corporations usually have the juiciest secrets but aren’t they entitled to privacy as well? Does it come down to who the person is and their position in life? Should Political figures and celebrities accept that their privacy is no more? One could argue that leaking information about the Watergate scandal as well as the “Pentagon Papers” (Tabi 2010) helps put together the missing pieces of history. One could also argue that these secrets were kept just that for the purpose of maintaining social harmony. I believe (for the most part) that a lot of the information that was kept from the public was done so to protect the people at the top. Whatever your thoughts, you have to agree that Wikileaks definitely puts a strain on privacy and equality.




References

Khatchadourian, R. 2010 'No Secrets: Julian Assange's mission for total transparency' The New Yorker, June 7, accessed on: 29/09/2011, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian

Tabi 2010 ‘The Top 10 Leaks of WikiLeaks’, The Wandrons, December 5, accessed on 29/09/2011, http://thewondrous.com/the-top-10-leaks-of-wikileaks/

Image sourced from: www.endiscomingblog.com 

ESTATE 4.5

Reading Axel Bruns’ ‘News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: New Directions for e-Journalism’ validated my decision not to take anymore journalism subjects. Bruns’ reading (2009) discussed the changing roles of the journalist from ‘gatekeeper’ to ‘gatewatcher’ and how more and more media organisations are embracing the change while others are stubborn and choose to fight. It seems (from the reading) that the job of most journalists is no longer to hunt down stories and report the facts; it is now their job to hunt down sources relating to reports, compile them, and make them available to their target audience. If I was a journalist, I would be furious if that was my job role. I would want to be out there reporting the news; not collecting information from the lucky journalists who did.

I think citizen journalism is a good thing. It is great that we have broken away from the one-way communication channel of ‘old media’ and can access multiple sources and perspectives on any topic or area of interest. Steven Johnson’s article (2009) ‘How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live’ discusses how users can seek opinions and sources about topics using twitter. Users of Twitter act as ‘Gatewatchers’ by referring their followers to different topic related sources by tweeting links. I believe the pro-am journalist relationship can work well when embraced by both parties. Bruns (2009) quotes blogger-journalist J.D. Lasica: Instead of looking at blogging and traditional journalism as rivals for readers’ eyeballs, we should recognize that we’re entering an era in which they complement each other, intersect with each other, play off one another. The transparency of blogging has contributed to news organizations becoming a bit more accessible and interactive, although newsrooms still have a long, long way to go (2003b). I feel the same way as Lasica.

Citizen journalism could, however, be a major contributing factor to the opinion that journalism is the most useless university degree there is. Here are some links to sources arguing for and against just that.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/report-journalism-degrees-are-probably-just-as-useless-as-you-expected/

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/journalism-useless-college-degrees_b34212

http://www.businessinsider.com/degrees-are-useless-and-other-tips-for-aspiring-journalists-2011-6

http://www.mediabistro.com/10000words/journalism-degree-is-not-useless_b4940 

References


Bruns, A. (2009) 'News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: New Directions for e-Journalism' [URL: http://produsage.org/files/News%20Blogs%20and%20Citizen%20Journalism.pdf]

Johnson, S. (2009). How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live. Time [URL: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1902604,00.html]

Image sourced from: mysocialmediaconversation.wordpress.com

SHOULD BLOGGERS GET PAID?

Should bloggers get paid? To be honest, I had never really thought about it until reading Clay Shirky’s piece “Weblogs and the Mass Amatuerisation of Publishing”. Shirky (2002) mentions that the vast majority of blogs are posted by amateurs and cover basic thoughts and opinions, but there is a minority portion of bloggers that write about real issues and have huge followings. But do they deserve to be paid? If these serious bloggers started charging a ‘pay-per-read’ fee, they would no doubt lose a lot of their readers. Shirky (2002) suggests advertising or asking for donations as a way to earn an income. I think these are both viable options and the only real chance bloggers have of earning any semblance of a pay-cheque. As Shirky (2002) points out, “the people who have profited most from weblogs are the people who've written books about weblogging”. It seems to me that if these serious bloggers want to be taken seriously as writers and get paid for their efforts, they should go through the traditional channels of publishing. And now is the time to do it. In Chris Anderson’s “the Long Tail” (2004), he points out that sites like Amazon.com and its recommendations and user review features makes it easier for lesser known authors and artists to be discovered and embraced by the public. As for weblogs, I agree with Shirky when he finished his piece with “participation in the conversation is its own reward”.

References

Shirky, C. (2002). Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing. [URL: http://shirky.com/writings/weblogs_publishing.html] 

Anderson, C. (2004). The Long Tail. Wired, 12.10 [URL: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html]

Image sourced from: volstate.net

IS THE WEB KILLING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY?

In 2004, Henry Jenkins predicted that “a micro-payment system would allow media producers (recording artists, independent game designers, web comics artists, authors) to sell their content directly to the consumers, cutting out many layers of middle folk, adjusting prices for the lowered costs of production and distribution in the digital environment” (pp34). Jenkins (2004) went on to say that “although long predicted, a viable micropayment system has yet to emerge, although there are new signs of life in this area”. This prediction has come to fruition and had great impacts on the music industry. Instead of buying complete albums, online music retailers such as iTunes and Amazon allow people to select and download individual tracks for next to nothing. This trend, coupled with digital piracy, has caused global recorded music sales to fall by almost $1.5bn (£930m) last year (Sweney, M 2011). It has also led to a huge decrease in physical CD sales. While both physical and digital music purchases are on the decline due to varying factors (Melanson, M 2010), it is predicted that by 2012, digital sales will surpass CD sales. I personally thought this would have already happened. Although this new way of purchasing music is effecting sales, it does give new artists a greater chance of being discovered due to online recommendations based on previous purchases. It is also nearly impossible to download these new artists illegally (believe me, I’ve tried). It seems that these new trends in the music entry mostly effect major recording labels and artists. Personally, I think they’re not going to starve. South Park covers this in a very clever episode. Please enjoy the clip below.

 

Christian Rock Hard
Get More: SOUTH
PARKmore...

References

Jenkins, H. (2004) The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 7/1, 33-43. 

Sweney, M. 2011, “Global recorded music sales fall almost $1.5bn amid increased piracy”, The Guardian, 28 March, accessed: 26/09/2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/mar/28/global-recorded-music-sales-fall 

Melanson, M. 2010, “Report: Digital Music Sales Will Surpass CDs in 2012”, Read Write Web, 14 January, accessed: 26/09/2011, http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/report_digital_music_sales_will_surpass_cds_in_201.php 

Video sourced from: http://www.videosurf.com/video/south-park-not-a-big-deal-10791435

NOT THE LION KING!?!

Until reading Lawrence Lessig’s piece “Free Culture: How Big Media uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Strangle Creativity”, I was unaware that Walt Disney took stories from the ‘public domain’ and used them to create all the classics I grew up with; Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, etc. But having never heard of the Brothers Grim fairy tales before, why would I? This discovery made me wonder if any other characters or stories from my childhood were rip-offs of something else. I stumbled across an article by Juan Arteaga entitled “6 Famous Characters You Didn't Know Were Shameless Rip-Offs”. Throughout this article, Arteaga (2009) counts down through 6 characters that I personally grew up watching and revealed the original basis for the characters along with shocking similarities between the two. The characters included the X-men, Superman and the Lion King! Although shocked and surprised by the similarities and the pictures that accompanied them, I began to think – who cares? The characters I grew up with were huge improvements on the original characters they were based on. I believe the same applies to the Walt Disney classics. The end result (I feel) outweighs the act of copying; although I do feel the creators of the original characters deserve some recognition.

References

Lessig, L. (2004). Creators. In Free Culture: How Big Media uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Strangle Creativity (pp. 21-30). New York: Penguin [URL: http://www.authorama.com/free-culture-4.html]

Arteaga, Juan 2009 ““6 Famous Characters You Didn't Know Were Shameless Rip-Offs”, Cracked.com, pp1-2, April 29, accessed 14.09.2011, 6 Famous Characters You Didn't Know Were Shameless Rip-Offs | Cracked.com http://www.cracked.com/article_17299_6-famous-characters-you-didnt-know-were-shameless-rip-offs.html#ixzz1XtzOYYE1 

Images sourced from: www.cracked.com