The final post...

What a great semester it has been in JOUR1111. Not only have I learnt an enormous amount of information about the media industry, I have enjoyed every minute of it!! It will definitely go down as one of those subjects at university that I thoroughly enjoyed and I will remember Dr BR's charisma and enjoyment of clever quotations.


All the best to my fellow JOUR1111ers... I hope you make the most of your uni experience. Take it from a third year (ah I'm old...) university will pass you by so quickly. 


And to anyone who has been reading my blog, I hope you have enjoyed some of my posts. I'm yet to decide whether I will continue this blog after this subject. I am seriously considering setting up a recipe blog devoted to some original recipes I create. I have definitely been watching too much Master Chef lately!!!


Please accept my farewell (the video below) and enjoy what remains of 2012!!

Holiday fun

As the end of semester one quickly approaches, I’ve had a number of people asking me how I’ll be spending my glorious four weeks of freedom...

Unlike past years where I was the boring person who stayed behind in Brisbane to work while my other friends jet off to some exotic location, this year I’ll be visiting the other side of our fine country.

That’s right, I’ll be heading to Perth! Although I am going there for a holiday I will also be taking part in the Perth International Mandolin Festival whilst I am there. This is a week-long festival held every 18 months in a different Australian capital city which typically features over 75 mandolinisits, guitarists and bass players in one giant plucked string orchestra.

During the week there are in-house concerts, countless hours of rehearsal, many social opportunities and of course after hours drinking. The week will culminate in a Grand Concert featuring two international conductors each conducting an entirely original major work.

So whilst there will be a little bit of work involved during my holidays, it will be spent doing what I love best... Playing music!!

Being Lara Bingle

Channel Ten’s new show ‘Being Lara Bingle’ made its television premier tonight. From the moment the ads for this show appeared on the idiot box, I thought, “God help us! What has home-grown Australian television come to?” But before I could judge, I thought I should give the show a try...

Here’s a quick rundown for those of you who may not be familiar with the show:

In Being Lara Bingle, the c-list celebrity by the same name invites viewers into her life in an access-all-areas observational documentary series that will take us behind-the-scenes of her private life for the very first (and hopefully the last) time. From a string of high-profile relationships, to (more!!!) leaked topless photos, controversial car crashes and endless swimsuit spreads – Lara Bingle has proved to be a solid gold tabloid attraction from the get go. Featuring a cast of her closest friends and family, Bring Lara Bingle will follow both Lara’s professional (does she have one?) and personal exploits.

So for 10 minutes tonight I watched the show. Who the bloody hell is she? I don’t really care! But I do have to admit that the show is not as bad as I thought it would be... Whether or not there's enough here to sustain a 10-part series remains to be seen, but this is not nearly as bad as it could have been.

As much as I hate to say it, I’m sure this show will attract a lot of attention, particularly from young women. Bingle has a weird but undeniable charm, and there’s an innocence about her that is strangely beguiling.



There are revelations from the bikini babe: "I do like sex," she says. What a ditz. 

WEEK 13 - Blogging Talk

What a cool way to finish the semester in JOUR1111. Today we had a guest lecturer who goes by the name of Steve Molk. Steve is the operator of an online television blog known as MolksTVTalk and although I had never heard of this blog before his presentation today certainly sparked my interest.

Considering I have never been one for reading or engaging with blogs (despite creating this one), I was really interested in this one in particular. Everyone, well pretty much everyone, watches TV and having participated in a number of journalism subjects this semester which have focused on television representations and programming, Steve’s blog tied in nicely. I particularly enjoyed his review of Shaun Micallef’s new program on the ABC ‘Mad As Hell’ which I think is a pretty funny program and it was good to read that Steve does too!!

For a man who had quite a lot to say during our lecture, I found the simplicity of MolksTVTalk testimonial very clever. Here’s what Steve has to say of his blog:

Television. Like it or not, it’s at the core of popular culture. It sets the tone of public opinion and as a result it offers all of us the opportunity to become armchair directors, producers, casting agents & critics.The glowing box in the corner of the room became very quickly the flat shiny panel hanging on the wall and/or that iDevice in our pockets/satchels. How we consume our television is changing. That we talk about television is not.I like talking about TV. A lot. I hope you do to, & hang around to read, listen, & get involved in the conversation.

Since this lecture, I have found myself reading Steve’s blog regularly to catch up on shows that I may have missed as well as to find out what other people think of current programs on TV. Who ever thought that I would be reading blogs enthusiastically just three months after starting my own?! 

But here’s what I learnt from this lecture:

• If I ever want to be a professional blogger, it’s going to take me at least five years to gain some credibility

• MummaMia, started little over five years ago by Mia Freedman has over 520,000 unique visitors per month!! Become the 520,001 and take a look

• We live in a world where traditional journalism is quickly fading into a sea of hopelessness, so if you want a career as a media professional, you had better start brushing up on your blogging, social media and twittering skills

So here's my humble opinion on blogging:

In the last five years, print advertisement revenue across Australia has been increasingly in decline. Since 2010, Web advertising revenue has consistently surpassed print advertisement revenue, bringing in $32 billion last year in comparison to the $22 billion in print advertisement revenue. What these statistics show us is that the days of print media are coming to an end. 

Let’s face it: journalism is shifting towards digital media, where readers have access to an infinite amount of sources to attain a wide range of information including news updates, discussions, images, videos, etc. Printed media simply cannot compete with what the Web has to offer. As a result, journalists, media professionals and newspaper readers are migrating to the World Wide Web. This shift does not mark the end of journalism; it merely redefines it. Where journalism was once prevalent in the form of news media, it may well thrive through this medium we know as blogging...

Whether this is a good or bad thing, I'm still undecided... 

I'm back...

I have been neglecting this blog for the last week or so, and for good reason I suspect... It's EXAM WEEK!! Please do not mistake my capital letters and presence of exclamation marks as a sign of excitement. They are actually revealing of the little voice in my head that is screaming at me for consuming so much information in the space of a couple of days.

So, my first exam is on Tuesday. It's one of those tricky multiple choice exams that threaten to test you on the last thirteen weeks of content... That's 26 hours of knowledge plus a whole bunch of readings and other junk. And while some of you may be thinking, "I love multiple choice exams. They're so easy," you couldn't be further from the truth my friends. At 11.15am this coming Tuesday, please bear a moment of silence for me as I pull out my sharpened 2B pencil and eraser and play the "A B A C C A, oh I haven't selected D for a while" game...

Eurovision: Never Again

Congratulations! It is Monday and we made it. That means we survived another year of Eurovision, even if there might have been times when we both felt like maybe we hadn’t survived and that somehow we had slipped away into an oblivion of pretty dark haired European ladies in little to no clothing singing totally boring songs about love whilst dancing like hookers.  

I’m actually glad to admit that last night was my first ever viewing of Eurovision. After a week of hearing my friend blab on about it on Facebook, how could I resist? 

 

 So, I made myself comfortable on the couch, prepared to be amazed by the talent performed before me (and for the world). Unfortunately, I must say, I was disappointed with the whole program. Not only was it one continuous advertisement for the host country Azerbaijan (which I had never heard of until last night and will probably never hear about again) the quality of the performers was terrible. The whole time I was asking myself, what on Earth is a central Asian country like Azerbaijan doing in a contest called Eurovision? Nothing about contemporary Azerbaijan marks it out as distinctly European -- it's Islamic, undemocratic and many, many miles away from the continent.

 

 Sure, the smorgasbord of beautiful European women wearing little to no clothing was captivating but I thought that Eurovision was supposed to be a battle by the best for the ultimate prize. Boy was I wrong! The winner, Sweden’s Loreen, was probably one of the WORST performers of the evening wearing some weird creepy smoke monster costume reminiscent of Lady Gaga. Personally, I would have given the prize to the Russian grannies just out of spite (and cuteness).  

 

Alright, so you may be thinking, “Marissa, aren’t you being a little harsh?” Well, as a musician and faced with performers with real talent and training every day, I cannot help but put a superficial, pop-star show like Eurovision down. There was too much sex, too little clothing and not nearly enough talent to get a tick in my books. The only thing that I did enjoy was reading the Twitter comments that appeared at the bottom of the screen… They had me and my Dad in fits of laughter.

Suffice to say, last night will be my first and final Eurovision.

Annotated Bibliography

Online journalism is revolutionising the way news is reported and read. The rise of the Internet has irrevocably changed the way audiences interact with the news – stories are posted the moment they break and readers are becoming more accustomed to searching for and reading the news online. This Annotated Bibliography will explore this present issue regarding the future of ‘traditional’ journalism by examination of four texts presented using different mediums, expressing both similar and contrasting opinions.

Franklin, B. (2008). The future of newspapers. Journalism Studies, 9(5), 630-641.

            The author, Bob Franklin, is the Professor of Journalism Studies at the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, and is the founding Editor of the journal in which this article is published. In this journal article, Franklin offers important insights into key debates concerning the ways in which journalism and newspaper publications are evolving under the influence of technological, cultural, economic and political changes. Franklin addresses a number of questions seeking to increase understanding of the roles of newspapers in the contemporary media landscape, by offering a theoretical and subjective examination at how the availability of online newspaper editions, citizen journalists and tabloid journalism are reshaping culture and mass media. Franklin constructs an interesting argument in his article suggesting that “impact of the Internet, as a factor explaining the decline of the traditional newspaper market, has perhaps been overstated” and that online news is not simply to blame for the decline of print media (2008, p. 632). The significant use of cross-cultural examples and scholarly perspectives adds credibility to the opinions expressed by the author thereby offering a unique and substantial contribution to the understanding of online news. This article is appropriate for scholars, researchers and students studying journalism and mass communication and will be of interest to anyone examining how people use the web as a source for news.

Fagan, D. (2012, May 19). Readership shows how we’ve changed. The Courier Mail, p. 58.

            

In this article, David Fagan draws upon his experience as the editor-in-chief of The Courier Mail and The Sunday Mail and provides an experienced perspective on the future of newspapers and traditional journalistic practise increasingly confronted with social media and online news sites. This work was compiled following a speech he presented to the University of Queensland Business School and American Chamber of Commerce and it is highly persuasive and based upon personal, albeit practical, experience. Fagan begins by suggesting that social media is not a new phenomenon and that good media has always been a ‘social’ act. Citing diverse examples, he explains how the forms, practises and mediums of online news have emerged as a result of the traditional structure and practices of existing media coupled with newly available technical capabilities. This is a perspective that is similar to Franklin’s (2008) discussed above. The author devotes particular attention to his personal experience with the newspaper, proffering a graph demonstrating that while there has been a modest decline in print readership, digital subscribers (through the iPad app, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and direct viewings) have more than compensated. Fagan concludes his article by assessing the implications digital news has for the future of journalism and offers advice to journalists regarding the importance of providing a diverse range of news platforms for readers.

Collins, S.J. (2012, March 29). Socialised media. The Global Mail. Retrieved from             

           http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/socialised-media/156/#

Sarah-Jane Collins, the author of this article, constructs an interesting argument in the matter of online news having worked as a journalist for The Age as an environment, science and technology writer. In this work, Collins addresses a number of questions seeking to increase readers’ understanding of the role held by online media and social networking in the contemporary news landscape. Her approach yields analytical insights into the current relationship between more traditional forms of reporting and the current mediums for online news, devoting particular attention to the factors that have influenced online media development. Beginning with an examination of the changing news cycle, Collins, using a quote from The Age editor-in-chief Paul Ramadge suggests that online journalism is revolutionising the way news is reported and read - stories are posted the moment they break, audiences are increasingly influencing the stories they receive and thus readers routinely expect a collaborative approach to news. Collins continues by highlighting the belief that social media, in particular Facebook, is what drives the news cycle and cites the KONY2012 campaign video as an example of the power and scope through the integration of news, advertising and social media. The author concludes with her predictions for traditional journalism and news reporting, suggesting that the future is an online one; a perspective shared by Fagan and Franklin above. Collins’ article makes a substantial contribution to the understandings of online journalism and social media, covering both the development as well as the impact of Internet-based news.

Slaven, K. (Producer), & Aedy, R. (Presenter). (2012, May 18). Journalism 2.0: The         

            future of journalism [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from      

            http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/mediareport/journalism-203a- 

            the-future-of-journalism/4023422

            This podcast, presented by Richard Aedy and produced by Kyla Slaven, emanated from the Sydney Writers’ Festival and was subsequently broadcast on Radio National’s program Media Report. Aedy, having been a radio journalist and broadcaster for more than two decades, lends credibility to his discussion of how the digital age is changing both journalism and journalists and whether easier access to information will lead to greater government and corporate accountability. Unlike the other two articles discussed, Aedy’s approach, aided by the discussion with two guest speakers, takes a much more sceptical approach regarding the growth of online news believing that producing Internet news content is not a complete nor constructive form of journalism. Heather Brooke, a guest speaker, expresses her concern that online newspapers are indeed detrimental because advertisers are no longer interested in broadsheet and classified advertising. As the discussion continues, Aedy provides an insightful account of how popular digital communication has changed the relations of production and consumption, in addition to the effect that it has on political and cultural participation citing Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as an example. What is most effective about this discussion is that Aedy consistently focuses on the shifting boundaries between popular and professional journalism as a result of the redistribution of news functions.