A little bit of News Writing

So, I will begin with a simple question; What is news? You think you know? Well I thought I did, but after Brian's lecture yesterday morning it became quite clear that there was a lot more to news writing when regarding style, sentence structure and the world of news journalism I did not understand.

Some of the styles that come under news and would be classed as news itself are as followed;

- Crime

- Financial Crimes (although these are complicated)

- News events

- Politics

- Celebrities

- Things that are within the public interest

-Last but not least; the stuff that's in the paper

News - it's 'new' or it has a 'news peg'/angle. It might be hard news such as crime, politics, natural disasters, or soft news such as celebrities, entertainment or animal stories. Animal stories such as the many cat stories inside the Mirror whose target audience is mainly middle aged women who may have cats? Who knows?

Anyhow, now to describe what a news peg is, much like the rest of my class I had no idea so Brian explained it for us. A news peg is not what we think is relevant but it is stories such as a dog bites a child. Once an incident like this happens, all kinds of stories relating to dog biting children occurs throughout the news. However, this is not because it has all happen all of a sudden it is because it is relevant to what is happening.

It can be said that certain stories are reported because of availability. For a story to work and be successful, the journalist must have someone to interview, something to video or take a picture of and so on. Ultimately, without this, a story would not work as the availability of information was low.

As journalists we need to remember and ask a number of questions ourselves, to make sure our potential story has, well, potential. Some of the following questions should be considered;

1. Do people care about the story?

2. Is it relevant to our audience?

3. Is it fresh or exclusive?

4. Is it dramatic or simple? (clear narrative, recognisable characters) E.g. tabloid = simple

5. Does it tap into current obsessions and events?

6. What is the latest moral panic/scare? - Dangerous dogs, bird flu, road rage etc

We as journalists then should consider practical reasons for covering or not covering a particular story;

1. Is there space?

2. Has a story been covered recently?

3. Have you successfully pitched it to the editor?

HOWEVER ...

1. A story must always be true

2. All facts must be checked and are beyond reasonable doubt 

3. A story must have balance - it must not address opposing views

Now for 5 of the most important words in journalism 

WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY 

All of these should be considered when writing a story and many of these should be included within the first paragraph. The introduction of an article must be short and sharp, it must include the latest information. The introduction can always be called the 'top line' and it must be amazinggggggg (therefore emphasis on the extra 'g's must be included), not only this, but usually it is around 20/30 words.

This triangle can portray the way a story should go. 

The top of the triangle, much like the top line of a story, must be short and sharp and to the 'point' - you get it?

As the story continues and the triangle goes further down, the story gets more in-depth. 

In order for the top line of a story to work, you must aggressively attack reality, therefore skirting around the edges will not cut it. If you can, quotes should be put in early and the second paragraph would be the perfect place for this. 

Key elements to remember

- It's about people - make this your top line

- Don't be passive, be aggressive.

- Have an angle (lower house prices, good/bad?)

- Don't start a news report with a question - the audience want to be informed not take part in a quiz!

- Be objective - do not describe news as good/bad/shocking. HAVE NO OPINION

- Quote people

A perfect little sentence structure

- One idea per sentence

- Short sentences

- Active rather than passive verbs should be used - at it's heart, news is about doing things

- Get rid of any word that is not essential 

- In news, avoid the drop intro - the drop intro is a delayed reaction, making you want to read on

- First words are vital

- Use nouns and verbs, avoid adverbs and adjectives

- Cut out gobbledgook - you are the filter as a journalist - if you don't understand it, the reader won't

Winol 16/11/11

Once again we have been asked as first years to produce a review of this (ok it's last weeks so don't judge me for it being this late) weeks Winol news bulletin. The presenter of this weeks Winol; Gareth Messenger, was extremely well spoken and comes across well on camera. He introduces each section of the bulletin well and i have to say comes across very professional. The Southampton interview included very good editing when looking at the interviews and overall seemed of good quality. 
One of my favourite stories included on this weeks bulletin was the paedophile case which was some hard-hitting journalism and seemed much like a story which would be included on the BBC news. However, i must say that there may be a few problems with law, and it can be said that the man had been libelled. The reason for this is he had been identified, the story had been published and he had been defamed. However, due to the fact he has been convicted of his crime means the students on Winol have a qualified privilege defence. Yet i can imagine the presenter of this story, Flick, had a few Law problems when covering this story. 


A story included in this weeks Winol which i also really enjoyed was the coverage on the Winchester Uni app, being released in 2012. This instantly targets Winol's audience who are students much like myself, who would be extremely interesting in something like this. For someone like me who doesn't let me Iphone leave my hand, coverage on a story like this had great interest to me and i also thought it was very well put together. 
Each week on Winol I look forward to watching the sport section as each week it is covered slightly differently, although I do normally enjoy watching sport such as Football, i felt like this weeks sport section was a bit long and i began to loose interest. However, i felt the interview with the player was very effective and this made me engage with the piece far more as it felt much more personal. 


As a whole, Winol seems to be getting better each week and as always I am very impressed by the professional standard of both the students and the bulletin itself. Well done!

New Media and the Crisis of Regulation egulation

When talking about New Media, a variation of things can occur in ones mind. In my mind, it makes me think of the internet, social networking sites and smart phones. It can be said that the internet offers both freedoms and constraints in equal measure, it just does these things differently. The new media began to challenge the corporate on ownership of the press and in time, large corporations took over the internet, as well as all aspects of new media. One of the best examples of this is Apple and how now they have taken over the market of smart phones and also now sell thousands of laptops and computers each year. The internet is thought to possess qualities that differentiate it from old media. An example of this is how normal people have the ability to produce content. YouTube has more content than anything that has ever been broadcasted in the UK. Ultimately, this can portray the way in which the internet has enabled people to add content on to one particular website such as YouTube. The internet has also allowed for communication and disseminate content with others without going via a central distribution point. However, even with restrictions on the internet there is often ways of working around these barriers. A personal example is at my secondary school most of the internet was banned (especially sites such as Bebo and Facebook) as all the students would sit in their ICT lessons and talk via social networking sites. However, someone found a code which enabled us to access these websites by just putting in a code, therefore allowing us to work around such barriers.


Generative Media
Generative Media are technologies that allow the user to do something creative with the specific technologies. An example of this is - a TV is not generative, but a computer is. Explaining this, a TV can  only be used for one specific thing which is watching TV, however you can use a computer to do many different things, watch TV, watch DVD's, play games, social network, shop and so on. It is individuals who are making content and it can also be said that it is individuals who put out content via networks. 


Network Media
A network media is a non-hierarchical and bilateral system of links, the two types of these are as followed;
1. Electronical infrastructual (hardware and network systems)
2. Social and Human (links made possible by hardware - both existing and new) E.g. Facebook you can contact your family. 
Networks also allow new patterns of distribution to emerge outside large corporations. 


The Chicago School offers a model of regulation. They propose we think about regulation of the individual as occurring in 4 separate ways;
1. Law - The Law regulates us by threatening sanctions if we violate it.
2. Social Norms - Social Norms are not administered through central authority. An example of this is when you meet someone, you know to shake someone's hand rather than lick their face.
3. Market - The market regulates how much you can consume. It is a constraint on action but is different from sanctions.
4. Architecture - Architecture is not just a physical building, but the forms of constraint that prevent us from doing something. For example, tinted windows on a car regulates out vision) 


All of the above are the 'modalities of regulation'. Any changes in one of the modalities will affect the regulated activity. However, some of these are much more powerful than others. E.g. Privacy - law is much stronger than social norms. Yet all are seen as fairly effective.
This is a model for justifying a weak state but is useful when thinking about the regulation and control of online behaviour. Ultimately, it allows a greater sophistication than solely legal means.

Journalism Now Article - The Sun's target audience

The Sun newspaper, originally a struggling broadsheet, was taken over by Rupert Murdoch in 1969, turning it into the format of a tabloid. The Sun’s main demographic is the middle/working class, therefore relating to the C2DE social class categories. Ultimately, the content of the newspaper portrays this. However, The Sun also has a wider demographic, including ABC1 men and women. As shown on The Sun’s rate card 2,795 people of the ABC1 demographic read The Sun on a daily basis.

The C2DE social groups –which are The Sun’s main target audience- can be stated to be mainly interested in television and celebrity news-stories; therefore The Sun connects with their target audience by including stories such as this. Generally, The Sun’s readership, when regarding gender, can be said to be both male and female. This is proven through the variety of celebrity and fashion stories, which would target middle/lower class women. Yet there is also a large sport section, without forgetting the images of page 3, which target the male demographic.

Advertisements throughout The Sun often reflect the target audience. An example of this is whole page advertisements for supermarket chains such as Lidl. Ultimately, by looking at prices shown in the advertisement, Lidl can be seen as much cheaper than higher chains such as Marks and Spencer’s, therefore portraying The Sun’s audience even further. As stated on The Sun’s readership card, it costs a total of £55,502 a day for an advertisement to be included in The Sun. This can relate to the 2,725,323 copies of The Sun sold between August – October this year. In contrast, The Guardian, which is said to have an audience of the ABC1 adults, sold a total of 1,198,000 copies between January – June. This can portray the way that although The Sun has a readership of a lower social class, it’s readership levels are nearly double that of The Guardian, and it also costs far more to include an advertisement in The Sun due to the difference in readership levels.

It can be said that due to new forms of media occurring throughout the past 10 years, some newspapers are finding it difficult to keep up. However, The Sun has begun to use new forms of media such as Iphone applications where you can download the newspaper in the ‘newsstand’ or download The Sun’s: Bizarre section as a separate application.  Relating to this, at the bottom of the Lidl advertisement there is a banner for Facebook saying ‘See you on Facebook!’ This instantly relates to The Sun’s audience, which are in the age brackets of 18-45, as stated on The Sun’s readership profile online. Many of these readers will have an account on Facebook and use it regularly, therefore enabling both The Sun and Lidl to target their audiences in a different way, which will interest their main demographic.

To conclude, The Sun’s success can be proven through its rate card, which states that although its main demographic is that of the C2DE social economic groups, it’s readership demographic also spreads widely to the ABC1 categories. 

Freedom of Information

So, today's lecture was based upon the freedom of information act and the way information can be given to you as a journalist, without generally breaking any laws.The 2000 act gives the public and journalists two key powers, the first one makes it mantatory on a public authority to disclose whether or not it has the information requested. Ultimately this can prevent certain organisations or public bodies lying. There are many people who are covered under this act and some of them are stated as followed;
- More than 1000 public bodies
- Central and local governments
- The health system
- Education
- Other public bodies throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland
Specifically speaking these cover the following types of people;
- GP's
- Hospitals
- Parish and Town councils
- Dentists
- Schools, Colleges and Universities
- Pharmacists
- Government departments

There are some exemptions to this which when thinking about it, are to be expected.
- Security and Intelligence services
- Special forces
- NCIS
All of the above have no duty to confirm or deny that any of the information people are enquiring exists.

This can be related to the public interest test which relates to the way that information must be released unless it is judged that the public interest in not disclosing it is greater than the public interest in releasing it.
F.O.I protocols are something which is extremely important when talking about the freedom of information act. It relates to the way there is no need to disclose why information is sought. The response back to those who write the F.O.I must be within 20 working days and also outline complaints procedure if necessary.

For those who are interested in requesting information using an F.O.I you must request it in writing, with enough information for authority to reply to. You can also specify how the information can be given back e.g. through email, writing etc.
On a final note, I will describe the main danger in doing this. This main danger is in asking for anything that might identify anyone in particular - because of secion 8 HRA and the data protection act, they can turn you down if the request will identify anyone, even if it is by accident. So, it can be stated that journalists who perform this type of investigative act retrieve information which is highly sought and can be seen as very intersting as it is not the norm.

Winol 9/11/11

I have to say, I was very impressed at the professional quality of this weeks Winol bulletin, especially after I had a few criticisms last week. Throughout the piece no laws were disobeyed which can portray the way the students working on Winol take it all very seriously - just as they should. To get it over and done with, i am going to point out a few negative comments which I think could of been improved. The first is although I think the student protest section was extremely informal and interesting, the background noise was very off putting and made it difficult to both concentrate and understand what the journalist was saying. Secondly, the camera shots throughout the fencing piece could of been improved on as sometimes they were too far away and may of been more effective using a closer shot. Apart from this, I was throroughly impressed with this weeks Winol so no more negative points to follow.


Now for my positive points, my favourite was the school report which I found informative and relevant, also being a bit of a breath of fresh air as it was a different story than normal covered on Winol (just that i've seen!). It also proved the professional quality of the team because they maintained the right shots and included specific things which would not breech any law relating to Children. Not only this, but the Chris Huhne interview was very impressive and was short concise and to the point which made it far more interesting than it would of been if it was different. I also have to add that Cara, one of the presenters I felt was extremely good and had a good clear voice for broadcast journalism.


Finally, the graduation was a great way to end the bulletin and it also had high relevance to the audiences of Winol. We would of all loved to see Chris becoming a professor though! The more I watch Winol, the more excited I am to be a part of it next year. Good work you lot!

'I think therefore I am'

Today's lecture was led by Chris today and was based upon Western Philosophy in the 17th and 18th Centuries. This time was divided between British empiricsm and continental rationalism. These theories are concered with epistemology; one of those words you have to read slowly to say properly. People who are empiricists believe your only source of knowledge is your senses and therefore agree with two main philosophers. The first philosopher this idea agrees with is Locke, who believed we as humans have no innate ideas and our knowledge is gained through our experiences. Ultimately meaning we are born as a blank slate and learn things through our personal experiences. The other philosopher is Bacon who believes in the scientific method and avoids the 'idols of the mind'.


Rationalism
Rationalists philopshers are as followed; Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza. (Also Plato in some ways, as his idea of the forms can be easily related to rationalism). These philosophers believed in pure reason and the mind on its own, or at least the pre-eminence of the mind.


Idealism
Idealists deny existance of matter and everything that is involved in ideas. A quote by Berkeley can describe this and it can in some ways be related to Plato.
"What I am aware of when I look at a chair is not the chair but how the chair looks to me - it is the effect it produces in my mind when I look at it - this is the same for other senses (e.g. touching, tasing etc)."


Descartes
Rene Descartes is most influential in the first half of the 17th Century. He is a contemporary of Galileo and therefore it can be said that he held views in common with Galileo himself aswell as people such as Bacon. Descartes opposed Aristotelianism and the tradional education available in many universities. Once he was old enough, he travelled around Europe, fighting in many of the wars happening at the time. By doing this he hoped that this life of action would give him insight, but unfortuntely this did not happen and thought of a plan which might help. This plan was to search for true knowledge. Geometry was one of the only things that Descartes knew to be true, as everything involving geometry is easily justifiable. This knowledge had always been tested and was ultimately inquestionable. He dismissed any knowledge on which there are any grounds for doubt, but made things very difficult for anymore who was trying to prove something to be true.
Descartes stated that senses often decieve you and even I can state this to be true. How often have you thought you saw or heard something for any number of reasons, sometimes it can just be because you are tired that your eyes have decieved you, or your ears have decieved you by thinking you heard something that you didn't. It then becomes clear how Descartes has a very valid point in only wanting to find TRUE knowledge. Adding to this point, he is able to raise doubts about pretty much everything, except his mind - even his body, so everything else is some other kind of substance.
The mind can be said to be one thing - the body another. This is 'Cartesian Dualism and was introduced by Descartes.


Spinoza
From what I understood from this lecture, Spinoza was a generally nice guy who was trying to do good things. He disagreed with dualism and therefore believes that everything is part of the same substances. Like all of these philosophers, they like things that are true and Spinoza believed that God and Nature are the only true substances. Spinoza did not agree with free will and thought that humans are simply just aspects of God. Adding to this, apparently, God did not create nature, God IS nature and people are part/aspects of God. Ultimately, this means that everything that happens is simply a manifestation of Good, therefore eliminating sin and evil.

Political Economy in The Media

Political Economy is interested in the state, regulation and conditions of cultural labour. A good example of this is how they are interested about what life is like for journalists in a newsroom and the implications of these conditions in the newsroom.
Nick Davies who argues in his book; Flat Earth News, that news is a commodity. He states that journalists don't have time to check facts anymore due to the time that it takes for the news production to be created. Ultimately, I do believe (although not entirely) that this is true. Many journalists now use reversioning, therefore by re-using other stories which have already been written, therefore mainting most of the facts, then re-writing the story in a different way, it saves a lot of time. Many of these reversioned stories are not even based upon an interview which in my opinion is quite lazy. Although I do agree that many journalists that are involved in broadcast journalism or online journalism don't have much time to find the story itself, so by re-using it does make it a lot easier. But then again, the easy opinion is not always the best option! Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey is the saying often told to me by my mum. It means, by working hard and not rushing you often get rewarded. Hmm, hasn't applied for much of my life, but we'll see!
Now to delve into power and the way this power has an affect on society. Hard power can be related to the control of capital, military power and the legal system. All of these have a very influencial power amongst society and this often means people are very wary and scared of the effect they can have and also not to mess with them. You definitely wouldn't see me trying to fight the legal system any time soon! Thanks to my law lectures that's hopefully going to help me know my place as a journalists and what i'm allowed to do. Going back to the important stuff, soft power can relate to symbols, discourses, and everything cultural and semiological. Corporations and governments do yeild to excercise soft power, but often not. Within the Media, hard power is exerted through concentration of ownership. For example the use of vertical and horizontal integration. Large companies such as News Internation and Rupert Murdoch can relate especially to this, as the use of Murdoch buying out many more companies and plots to use for his 'media world' his is using this integration to have POWER over the media as a whole.
Power can be said to work at 3 levels;
1. The ability to influence decisions
2. The ability to set the agenda in the first place
and 3. Structural power - the effect and institution has, just by simply being there


Relating back to Murdoch and the hard power he has amongst the media and society, can lead on to the well known phone hacking scandal. It was said that many people were worried about giving any evidence about the scandal as they were worried about what News International would do them as they were such a big company with so much media power. In other words, many people were afraid that N.I would defame them within one of their many newspapers or television programmes and therefore create problems for them. These companies such as News International have the ability to influence key personnel within the state and have done for decades. Ultimately, it makes you wonder as a citizen who does not have any wider knowledge of this, how much these companies get away with. Really, this can be easily be related to the Law and the ways many people get away with crimes on the down low because they are close to the police. A disgrace if you ask me. These large corporations aswell as individuals who have hard power have the ability to keep particular issues off the agenda through this.


Now to move on to Berlosconi, who today was defamed in The Sun for the amount of debt he has created for Italy, a £1.6 trillion one! Wow! Berlosconi started off as a builder then moved to local Italian TV. He then made his way up to national newspapers and then got involved with the large football team AC Milan. Berlosconi obviously is and was a very intelligent man as he precisely knew the exact way to work his way up in the world as after this he created and took over 3 main commercial channels and strided forward to create his own Politcial party named Forza Italia. He managed to create members and fans of this party by using all of his workers. A way to show his power amongst society can be shown in a video which is of him leaving a building and seeing a female police officer leaning against a car writing something down. Berlosconi continues to walk over to her making rude gestures behind her, insinuating many different things. I would put the video from YouTube straight on here for you to easily see but thanks to my copyright restrictions which I am now aware of this is not possible! So just go on YouTube and watch it instead.


As a summary of political economy in the media, there is a relationship between hard and soft power and both are always being used on society and by companies to get things done their way. This is why companies such as News International run the media world due to the use of integration and their influence on what is fed to us through the media means we and the police -who probably get bribed more often than not to keep quiet about many things- let them get away with it.  Murdoch, what a man!

The Investigation

This weeks law lecture was run Brian, who led us through the concept of Investigative Journalism. This refers to every day news and reports of this, including interviews with the people involved and/or people who have been affected. Ultimately investigative journalism can be seen as an off diary/set your own agenda type of journalism where you are investigating something that is not common knowledge (yet) and it may be something someone else doesn't want you to know. As described by Brian, many investigative journalists are often very awkward in the sense that they go out of their way to ask awkward questions in order to get an interesting answer.


An example of an investigative journalist is Louis Theroux. He is known for his 'gonzo journalism' which is another name for investigative. He has made such programmes as 'When Louis Met...' where he follows a British celebrity in their day to day life, whilst interviewing them about their life in general. He is also known for creating documentaries named 'Louis Theroux Weird Weekends' where he follows American subcultures such as Black nationalists, White supremacists and Porn Stars. Consequently, the classic 'investigations' done by investigative journalists are based upon serious issues which are often in the public interest.


Within investigative journalism, these journalists need to be careful of the two following things;
1. Malice
2. Conflict of interest
As previously to this lesson I did not know what conflict of interest was, I will attempt to explain. A prime example of conflict of interest is Jon Snow, the channel 4 newsreader refused to wear a Rememberance day poppy on air in protest of 'poppy fascism'. He said that he did respect the armed forces and continued to wear a poppy outside the studio however whilst on air, he believed it better to be without incase it made a particular statement to some viewers. Ultimately, this is because for many people, the poppy can mean many different things and he believed that by wearing this poppy and also reporting stories about this, it may create a statement for some viewers.


Miscarriage of Justice
The classic 'off agenda' is miscarriage of justice which is where people who are framed go to jail. This can be related to the innocence project where convicts who believe or (who actually are) innocent can write to the innocence project to ask the journalists working there to help them. After the bombing attacks such as the Guildford 4 and the Birmingham 6, the Criminal case review commission (CCRC) was set up to investigate alleged cases of miscarriage of justice, however this is often not seen as being effective.
In a nut shell, when a Judge says to the alleged offender 'I serve you 20 years' that is the minimum sentence they get, however say if they misbehave in prison they can easily serve more. If someone maintains their innocence after getting convicted, they usually get released (if ever) many years after the should of. Consequently, if the convict attends such things as rehibilitation classes and admits they are guilty, they often get let go before or on their release date. In my opinion, the convict admitting they murdered several people should not allow them to be released any earlier. But hey ho, corruption is another story.

Winol Review

This is my first review of Winol, but I have to start this post off (being geuinley truthful, not being a bumlick) I was extremely impressed! The professional nature of the whole show was very high and all of those involved maintained very professional throughout. The introduction of the bulletin was of a very high standard however I did think (this may be just my judgement) but a few of the clips seeed to cut off slightly quickly, resulting in the last word of speech being left out. The interview with the MP outside parliment was VERY VERY VERY professional in my opinion, and I was extremely impressed by this. The whole clip itself was something that would be seen on the BBC and therefore I think the Winol team should definitely be proud of that. The clip relating to the campaigns in Bournemouth could of been improved only slightly due to the wind in the background making it difficult to concentrate on what the speaker was saying.

Back on good terms, the Sport section was outstanding and I feel that the commentary and variation of local sports was very good. However, at the end of the Sport section, it was cut off very quickly so maybe a smoother transition could of made it slightly better? Ahhh, I hate giving critism so i'm sorry!
Finally, the sneak-preview of Winol Life included very good features and a good insight into what we as the audience had in store however the background music used felt a bit cheesy, but otherwise that is the only bad point!
I hope my critism can be taken as constructive and I wasn't too mean, but I honestly have to say Brian is right, Winol is definitely the best online student run news programme in the country and I am extremely impressed with the professional quality of the programme itself, aslong with the students involved.

Tic Tok, it's the Clockwork Universe

Pre-warning, these notes are a mixture of friend's notes and my own notes made from Russel's, History of Western Philosophy. Due to missing last weeks lecture (once again, big thanks to my boyfriend who gave that to me!), these notes may be a little muddled, and the most important ones may not be included so bare with me please :)

To begin, it can be said that Astromomy can be related to the study of heavens. Relating to the rise of science, in the 16th century, with its absorption in theology, the 16th century itself was far more medieval than the world of Machiavelli.

The above image was taken from Flickr, by Kojotomoto.

Frances Bacon (1561-1621)Bacon was a founder of the modern inductive method and the pioneer in the attempt at logical systematization of scientific procedure. He was violent towards Aristotle and the scholatic approach, and believed it was a mistake of mixing religion and natural philosophy. His most important book is named 'The advancement of Learning' and in many ways as stated in Russel's History of Western Philosophy, is extremely modern. Bacon is regarded as the originator of the saying 'Knowledge is power'. The basis of his philosophy was practical and he believed that philosophy should be kept seperate from theology.

Bacon wished to discover the nature of heat, which he rightly believed consisted of rapid irregular motions of the small part of bodies.

Locke

Although we have previously gone over Locke, and he is also mentioned a fair bit in previous blogs, it is important to go over a few main points about him. Locke believed in human understanding, and most importantly, believed that understanding comes from experience. He was against any innate ideas, relating to when we are born, our minds are a blank slate. He stated that god gave us a reason and ability to look at something and understand it. Therefore if this is true, the innate theory is not needed. Locke believed similarly to Bacon that most things are down to experience.

Heliocentric Model
In the 16 th century polish astronomer copernicus stated that he believed that the sun is at the centre of the universe and that the earth has a twofold motion;
1. a diurnal rotation
2. an annual revolution about the sun
Copernicus main work was named - De Revolutionibus Orbiun Coelestium, and was published in the year of his death (1543), with a preface completed by his friend Osiander, saying that the heliocentric theory was only put forward as a hypothesis. This book was dedicated to the pope, during the time of Copernicus the church was more liberal than it become after the council of trent, the Jesuits and the revived inquisition had done their work. Copernicus allows himself to be influenced by aesthetic motives, the fact that the sun is not exactly in the centre, complicated the simplicity of his theory. One of the many difficulties in his theory was the absence of stellar parallax. Ultimately, if the earth at any one point of its 186,000,000 miles from the point at which it will be in six months, this ought to cause a shift in the apparent positions of the stars. However none of this was observed by Copernicus.

Galileo (1564-1642)Galileo, Galileo. Galileo, Galileo. Galileo, figaro, magnifico. Just a few lyrics from Queen which instantly pop in my head whenever the name Galileo is mentioned (for obvious reasons).
On a serious note, Galileo is the greatest of the founders of modern science, apart from maybe Newton. He was born on the day when Michelangelo died, and he died in the year in which Newton was born, Galileo first discovered the importance of acceleration in dynamics. 'Acceleration' means change in velocity, whether that means in magnitude or direction. It had been thought 'natural' for heavently bodies to move in circles, and terrestrial bodies to move in straight lines. Galileo held , as against this view, that every body, if left alone, will continue to move in a straight line with uniform velocity. This principle was the enunciated by Newton as the 'first law of motion' and is also named 'intertia'

Blagged! Nope, sorry that's copyright!

Today's law lecture consisted of going through a few of today's papers and analysing whether people's privacy laws had been breached and whether they had been defamed or not; basically going over what we have done in previous weeks, which is always helpful for me, especially after missing lasts weeks lesson! However, the down-side of today's lesson which I think I can speak for everyone in my class, was that basically all of our images that most of us have retrieved from google images or wherever, and put on our blog ARE copyright, and as budding journalists, we should take off due to copyright constrictions. Bummer, so yeah, if you are now reading my blog and think it looks boring it's because right now I don't have enough time in the day to go out taking pictures of Kim Kardashian, Judges and The Beatles! :)
Copyright, existed in the UK and US in common law since the early 18th Century. Copyright can be related to intellectual property which is a residual right that every citizen has not to have their work stolen and exploited by others. This property right is protected in the same way as any other right.
There are two types of copyright and these are as followed;


1. Keep ownership (Licence) - you pay a little bit of money to own it
OR
2. Sell copyright (Buyout) - you sell the copyright completely, so you therefore own none of it.


 A further example of this is our copyright rights as Journalism/Winchester University students. When we joined, we signed a sheet which stated that any work we produce is property of the University rather than ourselves, therefore when Winol students produce their videos for the news bulletins, that is property of the University. Recently, Cambridge University students interviewed previous Bond man Roger Moore in their university newspaper, ultimately, this interview if sold would mean the students got no profit from it. Sucks a bit, i know!

Another example mentioned by Chris today was how The Beatles sold all their copyright rights to Michael Jacksons record company, therefore if you used a Beatles song on your own website which you profitted money from, Michael's record company could sue for using 'their' property without consent. This can be related to the two different types of consent available;Explicit consent - when someone (say a celebrity) sends out a press release saying they are going to be in a specific place at a specific time for the press to take pictures. Putting it simply, it is the press having TOTAL consent.Implicit consent - When although the press do not have explicit consent, the celebrity is not trying to hide their face from the paps and not making a fuss about not wanting their picture taken.

Another good example of this, is one of my own images (shown above) which is now published on my blog. Ultimately, you should not take my image as it is mine and i have not given you proper consent. So to cheer up your day, this is my pumpkin man created by me and my mum this halloween, his name is Timmy;

Now on to a very important topic of today's lesson; Fair dealing (lifting, in tabloid terms). Fair dealing relates to having no copyright in facts, such as if you use the score from a football match, that can not be classed as copyright. Fair dealing can be related to these three things;
1. Comment
2. Criticism
3. Review
From the 1998 copyright act, you are allowed to use someone else's work aslong as you are either commenting on it, critising it, or reviewing it. In most circumstances, the source must be credited, have commercial availability and package a review with fair dealing.
You can also use fair dealing if you are doing private research and for study purposes, you are critising or news reporting or making copies and lending by librarians.

Following the above notes on fair dealing, this can be closely related to Creative Commons which was and is generally used in the US. It refers to the way in which some people allow others to use their work (whether it be an image/video and so on) under their own certain conditions. This is where the website www.flickr.com comes in handy as it allows you to search for a particular image, and chose to only see ones under certain copyright constrictions, then when finding the image you want, view the certain conditions the producer choses (mostly to be credited for the image).

So, this blog may look plain and simple now due to lack of images and relating to this, lack of time to go out and photograph particular things, however it does include a lot of important information! Now i'm back on top form and getting over this illness, my blogging should be more frequent, if not, i'm sure I have an extremely reasonable excuse!

Genre in the Media

So, although I have been informed many times but fellow classmates and older Journalism students at Winchester that I do not need to blog about Media key concepts, sometimes I find it a good way of going over my notes and since I missed a lot due to being ill last week (not helping that I am still not 100% better yet), I realised it wouldn't go a miss. So, this weeks reading and lecture in key concepts was based upon Genre.
The theory of genre was developed in relation to films, yes that's right, such things as Horror, Comedy and Sci-Fi etc. Well, the word 'genre' is formed from the french words 'type' and 'kind' which basically all mean the same thing anyway, although being specific about the particular word you chose is good! Genre is a system for classification and it is a widely understood and used form of analysis. For example, when taking a little visit to Blockbusters, -which I seem to do weekly, spending a good half an hour walking around the shop at least 4 times and still not picking anything- you can look for the specific genre you want e.g. Horror, and look specifically down that isle for all the Horror films they have on offer.

'Art VS Genre' often equivilates to 'Elite VS Mass', and as proven these are often set in binary oppositions. This can be shown in the way a specific book can allow for a contract between the producer and the audience. If you expect a certain thing in a book/film, for example watching the newest Paranormal Activity film, if you are not scared and find it amusing rather than scary, as the audience you become annoyed with the producer when this 'contract' is broken.
Another way of describing this is specific film/tv genre's often portray this contract (more related to in our minds, rather than written down), such as Medical Drama's.
When watching a medical drama series, we as the audience expect to see such things;
- Hospital
- Injuries
- Doctors and Nurses
- Paitients

If we tuned in to watch ER, and it did not involve any of the following things, we as the audience would be both annoyed and confused as this 'contract' of expectation has not been made. This is described in the following quote by Neale.S;

"As far as genre is concerned, expectations exist both to be satisfied, and, also, to be redfined." Neale. S 1983


The word 'Intertextuality' refers to the referencing of one text within another. For example, The Simpsons does this constantly, using guest stars and references to films such as Harry Potter when Homer dresses his pet pig up as 'Harry Plopper', for people who know Harry Potter, they instantly understand this reference.


It can be said that genre is a signifying system, and most importantly, functional. When genre is functional, it means it limits the meanings potential.
 "Genre are typical forms of texts which link kinds of producer, consumer, topic, medium, manner and occasion." Hodge and Kress
This can relate to camera movements, editing, colour. 

Image from Flickr, Auggie Tolosa

A subject relating to this is bad language in childrens television programmes, for example a sign language presenter on one of the CBBC's television programmes, used a sign which actually meant an extremeley rude and offensive word, instead of the word he was meant to mean. Therefore this can be related to the way if the genre type is messed about, such as using bad language which everyone knows is NOT used in childrens programmes, this is a wrong use of genre.

For producers, genres can be used to allow for creative outlook and constraining. Quentin Tarantino does this on a regular basis, and uses a specific genre but changes it in a different way to make it new and exciting.
Following this point, for producers genre;
- Constructs an audience
- Manages expectations
- Allows for possibility of disrupting expectationFor example, nudity is fine in some things such as the documentary television programme Embaressing Bodies, however it would not be classed as fine in Eastenders.


For audiences genre;
- Frames of reference
- Allows for active process of constructing meaning
- Recognition requires 'Culture Capital' e.g. generic knowledge


New media forms often borrow from what has gone on before for example, Radio used theatre concert and music hall music, television used literary adaptations and soaps, and gaming used films and fairytale stories.

Summarising all of the above points, ultimately, meaning is produced by the combination of elements in particular ways. It doesn't require the presence of all possible choices, and individual texts may be recognisable generically. Consequently, genres do develop and change dynamically over time and they may now combine hybridity. Actually, sometimes they can become extinct and cease to have cultural currency in general.