23/05/2013

America & The New Industrial Estate


America and The New Industrial Estate

Max Weber was the first to look at Bureaucracy. He believed that it was the most efficient form of organisation. The organisation had a well-defined line of authority and clear rules, as well as regulations. These HAD to be strictly followed. 
Certain features that an efficient bureaucratic organisation should have is; precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge and strict subordination. 
America is a bureaucratic country, run my Lawyers who divide and sort out the rules. 
Bureaucracy is the main source of legal power. 

Karl Marx said that the crisis of capitalism will lead to the fall of Western Civilisation. There is a constant struggle for humans to survive as we use up all of our resources to the maximum limit. 
The 60's and 70's are a prime example of this as there was the economic boom that led to high levels of inflation and therefore mass unemployment. 
Marx believed that money became the state intervention of 'mans true nature'. Forcing him to therefore become alienated. 
Marx's theory describes two elements that led to the exploitation of the working class;
1. Forces - raw materials, technology and labour
2. Relations of Production - Ownership
Similar to David Riccardo, he believed a products value was dependent on the amount of labour power invested in it. 
Marx was influence by Adam Smith about the free market and efficiency. 

John Kenneth Gailbraith wrote The New Industrial Estate in 1967. The book explores the economics of production and the effect large corporations could have over the state. 
Gailbraith argues that the 'industrial system' is controlled by Technostructure rather than share holders. Technostructure is the term for all those involved in groups decisions and making the organisation tha they form. The goals of technostructure are survival, growth, technical virtuosity and increased rate of dividends. The basis need is to prevent it's revenue from falling. 
The New Industrial System satisfies anything that can be seen as a human need. 

Heidegger believes that society is a death machine and it is doomed. 
Nietzsche - 'You are a slave if you are not prepared to die'

John Keynes was a British Economist who believed that money had the power to affect human behaviour. He believed in a problem free society and saw the massive decline in income and employment that was way below average.
Keynes thinks that every need should be satisfied and problems such as war, and disease should be dealt with. 
He believes the answer to all these problems is to go to these places such as Vietnam and Poland and now allow their citizens to come where the money is. This can be related to many modern day problems occurring at the moment with the Government. This will therefore solve problems of over population and the fight for jobs. Keynes' ideas were attacked from both sides. The left was Heidegger and Satre who saw America as bureaucratic and run by Lawyers. The right was attacked by Hayek who believed that things started to go wrong with Kant, and by Nietzsche it was a disaster. 
Keynes' economic philosophy is that 'money matters'. 



WINOL Critical Review 2013


WINOL Critical Review 2013

Winchester News Online (WINOL) is a student run independent Journalism, which this term, was created by a mix of Second year and MA Journalism students. Throughout the past term, we as a team have worked together to make WINOL even more successful than previous years. Ratings and viewing figures are constantly on the rise with WINOL expanding across news, sport, fashion, travel, adventure, the arts and a variation of reviews.

WINOL as a whole has gone from strength to strength this semester, with the WINOL site - www.winol.co.uk being a prime example. Although a similar style has been kept from last term, a few new additions such as the slider have been added to the site. Adding the slider was an extremely good move in my opinion as it allows audiences to have a brief view of all the best features and news stories without having to change the page. Ultimately, the large image that is used is also highly beneficial, as audiences are automatically drawn to images rather than text. We, as a team, have been continuously keeping an eye on our Alexa Rankings, which state how high we are ranked as a website overall. The most recent Alexa Rankings from 27/03/13 state that we are placed 12,025 in the UK which is above the Hampshire Chronicle and the Basingstoke Gazette. With the help of Hannah Hayesmore, our Social Media Editor we have used the site, all of our Journalistic platforms such as news, sport and features and the use of social media to allow WINOL to become far more successful. Throughout the term we have had a variation of guest speakers come in and give our team advice; both constructive criticism and positive feedback. Suzie Boniface (commonly known as the Fleet Street Fox) gave a lot of advice relating to upping our viewing figures. We took on this advice and have attempted to take advantage of the Internet’s ‘rush hour‘ times, uploading the bulletin and other content onto the site at peak times to allow for maximum viewers.

Most of the team have carried on their previous roles in WINOL from last term, which I think has been a large reason why it has been so successful. Each team member has been confident with their role and have therefore excelled within each passing week. This year the News team have been excellent, producing triumphant bulletins each week and also putting together a variation of larger news productions which have been highly rewarding. An example of this is the Eastleigh ‘big live show‘ based on the Eastleigh by-elections. Throughout these few weeks of the Eastleigh by-election period, it showcased our skills as a team and produced some of the best packages, showcasing names such as Nick Clegg, David Cameron and Ed Miliband. Not only this but WINOL’s Chief Reporter, Spence Spencer managed to get a show-stopping interview with Boris Johnson which received over 4,100 views. The team’s efforts can be seen in the final viewing result of over 1500 individual views on WINOL’s online stream. I believe that the entire coverage of the by-election portrayed the team efforts of both the production team and reporters, all coinciding together to ensure a high standard of content was created.

Another triumph for WINOL this term was The Budget announcement. The various coverage from WINOL’s Economics Reporter, Faith Thomas was very successful in the past few months, with her pieces proving to be extremely informative and advantageous to our team with great interviews outside the Bank of England from MP’s such as Mike Thornton. Adding to this, the weeks bulletin used a studio guest who stated their own personal views on the economy. This added a polished element to the bulletin, portraying our skills and variety as trainee Journalists. 

This year WINOL covered a large spectrum of important stories and topics, producing them for all types of media platforms such as online features, radio and the news bulletin. Throughout the past few months, a few specific stories and reporters stood out to me. The first is Christina Michaels who’s role is Chief Court Reporter. Since starting the role in September, Christina has grown as a reporter, continually creating gripping packages that always portray the seriousness of the story itself but also use genuine facts and images to back it up. 

Another reporter that stood out for me this term was Jack Webb’s story on the Hampshire teddy bear Derek who was blasted in to space. In contrast to Christina’s high impact, gripping crime reports, Jack’s ‘and finally‘ story which was placed at the end of the bulletin, was a brilliant and light hearted news story that people of all ages could enjoy. 

Within WINOL, no team member is of a less status than another. Although particular reporters, feature writers or specific content can be praised, there is a lot of behind the scenes work done by our hard working and brilliant production team, not forgetting the web editors who re-create each section of WINOL online to make it look as professional and aesthetically pleasing as possible. This term, the Five different feature sections; New Winchester Review, Adventure and Travel, Music, Comment & Analysis and Absolute:ly all were re-designed in order to make each page engaging and professional. Jason French, our web-editor took advantage of his superior knowledge in web design, enabling him to create custom templates using Wordpress for each home page. The Adventure and travel section has a much more complicated design layout however I believe it is extremely effective. The main focal point of the homepage is the slideshow which takes up the whole of the homepage itself. Most images link straight to YouTube video’s by using plug ins. As a whole, I believe the Adventure and Travel magazine has become a great asset to WINOL this term as it entices a whole new target audience to our site. 

For my second term on WINOL, I continued my role as Fashion Features Editor of Absolute:ly, our online magazine. The reason I decided to carry on with my previous role was because I felt that by the end of last term the site had just got up and running and I believed that with more work I could bring the site up to an even higher quality than before. The major change to the site this term was the layout. With the help of Jason, who is WINOL’s web editor, we updated the Absolute:ly site making it sleek and modern. In my opinion this made the website look far more superior than any other student fashion website out there. Absolute:ly looks far more technical and professional than ever before and in my opinion, the content simply enhances this. 

Last term Absolute:ly had 7 mini sections, however this year we have decreased this down to 6, also changing a few of the names. We now have; Hair, Fashion, Gossip, Competitions, Beauty and Relationships. I believe by introducing the relationship section, it has enabled us to reach out to our target audience of Women from the ages of 16 - 30, who would be interested in the features involved. Not only this, but our competitions section has gone from strength to strength this term with Shona Race creating a variation of competitions where contestants can win a mix of beauty/fashion freebies. I believe such aspects as freebies, competitions and new sections of our magazine have made Absolute:ly even more successful than last term. 

Throughout my second term of WINOL I have produced various features for Absolute:ly that ranged from style wars, make up must haves and beauty reviews. All of which I believe have shown not only my potential but proved to myself what I can produce when I put my mind to it. My favourite feature of this term was The Hampshire Style Wars which I produced with Shona Race. This fashion feature was based upon Winchester VS Southampton student style wars, where we put 3 girls from each City head to head to see who had the best style. I believe this feature was the most successful as the graphics used made the feature look visually pleasing, yet it aimed at not only Winchester students, but Southampton students too, bringing in even more traffic for the site. 

Another feature I enjoyed producing this term was ‘Dr Fashions Eastleigh Emergency’. This is where my role of Dr Fashion from last term comes into play and in simple terms, I critised all of the Eastleigh Election Candidates on their style. Although I thoroughly enjoyed this feature, it is one I think I could of improved on this term. In my opinion I held back too much when critisising the candidates and think that my feature would of been far more successful and enjoyable for my audience if I didn’t restrain as much on my description. 

I have come on in leaps and bounds this term, with creating a variation of successful fashion features and also putting a lot of input into other features happening throughout WINOL. Unlike last term, Absolute:ly has had a steady team who each have pulled their weight equally. Last semester, Absolute:ly struggled to get off the ground with website layout changes being an issue, as well as lack of content with only Myself and Sophie Webb creating features on a regular basis. However, this year, with a steady team of Five of us, producing multiple fashion and beauty features, it can be stated that Absolute:ly has become a triumph in student fashion Journalism.

Due to serious illness for a month of this semester, it took out valuable time that would of enabled me to create one more large feature. Fortunately, the rest of the team on Absolute:ly carried the site through, creating a variation of successful and professional features that kept the site up to date. This point portrays the idea of team work throughout WINOL. Although specific packages and features are done separately, everything is a team effort, from putting the bulletin together to uploading features and getting the site up and running.

With the evidence given in this review, as well as viewing www.winol.co.uk, it is hard to deny the professional standard and success of WINOL as a whole. Throughout this semester I have attempted to make an impact, using Absolute:ly as my way of producing great features through my love of fashion and the magazine industry. I believe not only me, but the whole team for Absolute:ly have been successful in raising the site to it’s best potential. All in all, the whole team of WINOL this semester have done an outstanding job, with advanced production, professional reporting and engaging feature’s, it is unmistakeable that WINOL is by far the best student run Journalism in the country.

12/05/2013

Absolute:ly Style Wars


The New Journalism

This lecture was based upon the new journalism and a brief history of American Journalism.


The Penny Papers in America (papers for a penny) - deeply partisan - merchants and politicians. An awaking of writing news for people who weren't highly educated. Tapping in to the regular public rather than the newspapers and articles that were written by the elite. 

Mid-19th Century objectivity became a factor in journalism because of the creation of wire services. The associated Press - AP - needed objectivity to be profitable.

The (first) New Journalism - The Yellow Press - late 19th Century.

The world of William Randolph Hearst of the New York Journal and Joseph Pultizer of the New York World. - Tried every trick in the book to beat each other in the circulation war. Hearst focussed on dramatic, romantic and shocking stories, he wanted you not to think, but to care.
Citizen Kane.
Shaking up the newspapers, making them far more interesting.

Sensationalisaton - huge, emotive headlines with big striking pictures - Sun on Sunday - Exclusives, dramatic stories, romantic stories, shocking stories, crime stories.

Many called Yellow Journalism the New Journalism without a soul. All the stories were about sin, sex and violence. (Yellow Journaism - frozen television - colourful, looks like TV)

America of the 1960’s and 70’s - similar to the time of Hearst and the Yellow Press. Great deal of political and social upheaval - fighting foreign wars, with even more serious military threats building overseas.

Journalists recorded the events of the day - normally in a formulaic way. Being trained in a specific way, who what when where why. Similar to the way we are trained as Journalists. New Journalism was an attempt to reflect what was happening at the time, in a much truer sense than had been done before (Tom Wolf).

Five W’s - news pyramid etc. But the New Journalism was an attempt to record events mirroring the language and the style of the events. Letting it bleed into the copy. (copy = the news story/feature) 

Poltical and Cultural Scene

1960’s was particularly turbulent - great hope of JFK (people looked up to, the American Dream), destroyed in assignation in 1963, disastrous war in Vietnam - controversy of the draft - Muhammed Ali refused to be conscripted - “I aint got no quarrel with them Viet Cong”

Demographic reasons - baby boom created a powerful youth culture - baby boomers hitting their teens in the 1960’s. They turned the faces away from the war in Vietnam. A Mass generation clash. The elite were seen as old etc, the voice of radical political change was the youth. 

Sexual revolution - sexual freedom, the pill, Reichian free love. The student movement - worldwide protests of 1968 - Civil rights, Black Power - use of LSD (introduced by CIA, they wanted to control the soviets) to assess altered thinking of counterculture. When women could take control of the reproductive, it’s a big deal because it taps into exestentialism, choice, freedom etc. Women could have sexual partners without being married etc, it allowed them to make their own choices and have their freedom. You could have casual sex. 

The CIA basically created the need for LSD, generally it gave the young people (minorities) they weren't part of society, they were different. ‘turn on, tune in, drop out’ (fight against it)

Reichian free love - (Feud says bad stuff going on in your mind and subconscious) 
He was a follower of Freud but then fell out with him. He said that Freud had it wrong, you should just let it all hang it, people are unhappy because they keep things in.

Sexual revolution relates to feminism and everything that started to change for women as a whole.
Turbulent political time - Panthers, Black rights etc.


Prohibition of drugs created subcultures - Hippies, communes, collectives etc - and established much of youth culture has other - deviant. 


Music was central - for Satre Jazz was authentic, the music of the 1960’s was a full frontal attack on the norms, drugs fueled (Doors, Beatles) and anti-establishment - protest and poltical songs, lead the movement (Bob Dylan) - with the aim to subvert and be political.
Music is a big part of existentialism. Heidegger - Authentic. Sartre thought music was Authentic. Bad faith, true and authentic life.
1960’s music was an attack on the norm.

Gil Scott Heron - The Revolution Will Not be Televised (protest song)
The real world is happening on the streets. - Existentialism
It’s saying the world happening out there get involved.

The revolution will be live - the revolution will put you in the driving seat

Influence of Existentialism

Ideas informed by Existentialism - Heidegger’s Authenticity, Sartre’s Bad Faith. Key ideas - Freedom and Choice, for example Fanon’s view of a path to freedom via accelerated choice (violence). As we have seen, for Fanon the act of violence is essentially the extreme expression of choice - choice with real, immediate impact.

Fanon took Sartre’s thought of choice one step further. We have to use violence to push to get to the point of freedom. Violence gets us there quicker. 

The most crucial choice you make, is the next one.
Black Power Movement - formed by Existentialism
Malcolm X - was named that as he wanted to cut away everything from his past and did not want to be defined by his past. He agrees with Fanon that violence is the way to freedom.

Anti-establishment feeling - “there is a policeman inside your head - he must be destroyed” - began to seep into Journalism.

Journalist question whether basing stories on press releases, press conferences and official statements made by the establishment was really objective - and more importantly a true reflection of events? [Bad Faith]

new forms of journalism began to emerge.

Journalists began to focus on setting, plot, sounds, feelings, direct quotes and images, while still being as careful as before with facts. Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe and Normal Mailer are examples of this new breed. 
How can you rely on the police, when they are shooting students, how can you rely on the CIA when they are making drugs to give to students etc. So people turned away from the establishment.

Journalists then began to get out of the office  - Tom Wolfe “if your a features writer, you begin to work doubly hard, like a crime reporter trying to figure out facts.”


This alternative journalism was personal and expressed an individual point of view. It was also unconventional, disagreeable, disruptive, unfriendly, and anti-power structure.
Shift in form of narration form DIEGETIC TO MIMETIC 

“Telling” to “Seeing”

An example of telling can be viewed on this link: http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/video/newscast/

An example of seeing: The TV Series: Mad Men

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItI0EQ9O7Gg

Marshall McLuhan’s Hot and Cool media -
Hot media: media that is very explicit about what it’s trying to tell you. Daily Echo telling you about a car crash on the M27. It gives you no choice of interpreting the information for yourself.
Cool Media: The Mad Men, ambiguous. You have to interpret the media yourself, you can see what’s happening, you’re not sure why it’s happening, you bring the meaning yourself. 

In New Journalism “Objectivity” [authority’s message] is junked in favour of subjective experience. 

Most famous example - Tom Wolfe

Wolfe was a huge fan of Emile Zola - one of the greatest writers of natural realism. 

“Zola crowned himself as the first scientific novelist, a ‘naturalist’, to use his term studying the human fauna.” - According to Wolfe

The New Journalism - essays done by a mix of people.

Wolfe enters into journalism first thing he notices is the status competition.
He is a very good journalist, he’s very specific and straight forward.

The competition varies though - the reporters are in the “scoop competition” - SKY - “First for Breaking News” - BBC - “updated every minute of the day”
Ambulance chasers - stories about “power and catastrophe”.

The other is the feature game - “a story that fell outside the category of hard news”. The game was hold your own in the competition until you got busy writing a novel.

“what inna namea Christ is this” -  Tom Wolfe. - Dramatic shift.The Features game was changing. Trying to replicate what was happening in the real world, putting it on the page.

New articles with real, intimate dialogue.

Reporter needs to be there to see it, to collect the data first hand. Once there it is only a small step to becoming involved - another character in the scene - Gonzo Journalism - Think HST ‘The Kentucky Derby’

To get this sort of material, you need to invest a lot of time in the subjects - days, weeks, years. “Use the whole scene, extended dialogue, point of view, and interior monologue.”

New Journalism pg 46 & 47

These are the 2 most important pages about features you will ever read as a Journo. 
The Journalists embraced social realism. Learned the techniques of realism from Balzac, Zola, Dickens etc. 

This power is derived from four devices: 

  1. Scene by scene construction - telling the story in scenes and not in a sheer ‘historical narrative’. Journalists needed to be at the event to witness it. 
  2. ‘Realistic dialogue involves the reader more completely than any other single device - it also defines character more quickly and effectively than any other single device.”
  3. - third-person point of view - “giving the reader the feeling of being inside the characters mind.” need to interview the subject about his thoughts and emotions, along with everything is. 
  4. The fourth device is the recording of everyday gestures, habits, manners, customs, styles of furniture, modes of behavior towards children, superiors, inferiors and other symbolic details that might exist within a scene. Symbolic of people’s status of life.
    Small details gives ways in to explain what people are like.

    Ultimate New Journalism piece is FEAR AND LOATHING  (Hunter Thompson).. “Gonzo Journalism”

“Performance Journalism” (eg SUPERSIZE ME) Michael Moore etc
You become the story and are central to the story.

Louis Therox - Gonzo Journalism
Gonzo Journalism can often be obvious by such features as: fly on the wall, shaky footage, being authentic. 

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