Sunday, 6 November 2016

Week 8- 

How a robot could be grandma’s new carer


MiRo is a robotic dog. There is an early model close to where we are sitting. Its head sits above a torso without arms or legs, and its cartoonish eyes stare out below alert ears embedded with speakers. 

Conran’s company describes it as a biomimetic companion robot, and says it will eventually work with facial recognition technology to make life easier for its owner – to prompt them to take medicine, or to remind them of visitors’ names, or to question them if it thinks they’re in trouble. 

Conran tells me to think of it as a cross between a pet and Radio 4’s John Humphrys. Dr Toshiharu Mukai of Meijo University has been developing a robot capable of lifting patients out of beds and into wheelchairs. It’s called Robear, is designed to look like an approachable white bear, and could, if successful, do a job that would normally involve several care workers. 

In Grantham, a prototype care robot was recently introduced to a sheltered housing centre. Part of an EU-funded project dedicated to investigating the ways technology can improve the day-to-day lives of elderly people, the robot is designed in part to – much like Conran’s MiRo – combat loneliness, and to offer reminders for tasks such as taking medicine.


Fears grow for children addicted to online games


Medical and addiction experts, charities and parents are becoming increasingly concerned about the amount of time children are spending playing online games as figures show that UK spending on titles such as League of Legends, World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto will top £3bn this year.
Dr Aric Sigman, a freelance lecturer in child health, said he had heard from a number of doctor’s surgeries that parents were asking for sleeping pills for their children. “Whether you call it an addiction or not, this is an enormous and growing problem,” he said.
The charity Action for Children says that a quarter of parents rank their children’s screen time, and how to control it, as their greatest challenge – bigger than the traditional issues of homework or healthy eating.
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Week 7-

Do parents overshare pictures of their children on social media


In a piece for the Guardian’s Weekend magazine on Saturday, schoolchildren in east London told Paula Cocozza that they had concerns about consent, their reputation, and parental invasions of privacy. 

Even small things could prove divisive, one of the youngsters saying: “One day my hair was all raggedy, sticking up all over the place, and my auntie put it on Facebook. I was so embarrassed I cried.”

Excessive sharing about your children has long incited disapproval, but recently the disapproval has begun to acquire a proto-legal tinge. In March, French police warned parents against posting photos of their children on social media; according to social media analyst Eric Delcroix, the children could soon be able to sue them for posting inappropriate pictures, under the country’s privacy laws. 

The treasurer of the UK’s Human Rights Lawyers Association, Leanne Targett-Parker, echoes the idea that it is only a matter of time before children mount legal challenges against oversharing parents. “You can’t imagine it not being something that starts to develop within the next five to 10 years,” she says. “I can’t see how there can’t be attempts at suing people for putting up posts that they’re unhappy with.”


Politics has gone wrong. Is digital technology to blame?


Digital technologies may have transformed the world around us over the last 25 years: how we shop, how we find love, where we look for news, whom we count as our friends, what we do with our time – all of this and more has been turned upside down. But if you took someone from the early 1990s and transported them into the political world of 2016, it would seem strangely familiar.

Digital technologies make it far easier than it has ever been to find out what people want – their likes and dislikes – without having to go through the cumbersome business of getting them to vote. You may find that a terrifying prospect. Or you may find it a liberating one. That’s another way in which this is an open question: making politics impossible sounds like something to regret, but if politics has become a barrier in the way of getting things done, could it be something to celebrate?
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Saturday, 29 October 2016

NDM News: The future of journalism


1) Why does Clay Shirky argue that 'accountability journalism' is so important and what example does he give of this?
Accountability journalism is a classic example of the iron core of journalism and in particular the investigative journalism category, where three reporters are dispatched for a long period on a story that may or may not pan out.  Newspapers’ ability to produce accountability journalism is shrinking. He argues that we’ll have to obtain a journalistic ecosystem to get anything like the accountability journalism we’ve been used to out of the current media landscape. He talks about the movie 'spotlight' and  how it is based on a group of journalists investigating cases of child sexual assault, including the involvement of the church. Without professional journalism cases like this would not have been found out due to the immense cover-up initiated by powerful people.


2) What does Shirky say about the relationship between newspapers and advertisers? Which websites does he mention as having replaced major revenue-generators for newspapers (e.g. jobs, personal ads etc.)?
He states that advertisers were not only overcharged, they were undeserved. Not only did they have to deliver more money to the newspapers than they would have wanted, they didn’t even get to say: “And don’t report on my industry, please.” 

3) Shirky talks about the 'unbundling of content'. This means people are reading newspapers in a different way. How does he suggest audiences are consuming news stories in the digital age?

 Online, people are only consuming things that they want to or are relevant to something that they have previously read/watched.Consumers rather than producers are the ones bundling the content together.
For newspapers, all the content would be bundled together and couldn't be changed to suit each readers needs as it is printed, so many would read everything, however people would still have the ability to pick and choose what they read but it is a lot more difficult.

4) Shirky also talks about the power of shareable media. How does he suggest the child abuse scandal with the Catholic Church may have been different if the internet had been widespread in 1992?

 Had the internet been widespread in 1992, it could be said that the limiting effects created by the catholic church and associates. The people could hid their actions all they want but with the internet it is much easier to share the content, it continues to be shared and shared until it reaches a point where the corrupt people cannot control the response.

5) Why does Shirky argue against paywalls?

 Shirky suggests that the paywalls are restrictions, even though the public need accountability journalism they still aren't going to pay for it especially since there's a lot of republication and reuse of paid content on free sites. 

6) What is a 'social good'? In what way is journalism a 'social good'?

A social good is something that benefits the largest number of people. Journalism can be seen as a social good as the exposure of certain cases such as the the Church sexual abuse scandal would be benefiting to everyone.

7) Shirky says newspapers are in terminal decline. How does he suggest we can replace the important role in society newspapers play? What is the short-term danger to this solution that he describes?

He says that We need a class of institutions or models, whether they’re endowments or crowdsourced or what have you — we need a model that produces five percent of accountability journalism. and that you can only replace newspaper with newspapers themselves. He thinks that a bad thing is going to happen  and people aren't taking it seriously. there is going to be a decline in accountability journalism which means corruption will be rife.

8) Look at the first question and answer regarding institutional power. Give us your own opinion: how important is it that major media brands such as the New York Times or the Guardian continue to stay in business and provide news?

 I think that it is important to an extent that brand such as The New York Times or The Guardian to remain in business simply because they're one of the only companies that are able to hold powerful people accountable for their wrongdoings. Unless online companies find a  way to pay for quality investigations, it is vital that the previous brands stay in business.

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Friday, 21 October 2016

The decline in newspapers: MM case studies


The New Day 

1) What was the New Day trying to achieve?
    The New Day was launched to tap into a new market, not specifically to pinch readers from other newspapers. 

    Alison Phillips, the paper’s Editor, said:
    There are many people who aren’t currently buying a newspaper, not because they have fallen out of love with newspapers as a format, but because what is currently available on the newsstand is not meeting their needs. This paper has been created as a result of customer insight and is the first newspaper designed for people’s modern lifestyles.

    2) List the key statistics on the first page: how many people buy newspapers in the UK? How has this declined in the last year?

    About six million people buy a newspaper in Britain every day. Over a million people have stopped buying a newspaper in the past two years

    3) What audience were the New Day trying to attract?

    The newspaper was targeted at women and men aged 35 to 55, people who want a more modern approach to news. They wanted it to be a ruthless edit of the day, with balanced analysis, opinion and comment, but no political line.

    4) Why do you think the New Day failed so spectacularly? There are several possible reasons listed in the article but do develop your own opinion here as well.

    Much of the content would seem to be aimed at twenty-somethings, or parents with young children. The majority of the articles seemed to target young women particularly, and the lack of space given to topics such as sport, coupled with the fact that sport was not positioned in its customary space on the back pages, meant that sports fans were not especially well catered for. 

    I personally think that the New Day failed since newspapers are already in decline, audiences weren't going to be particularly intrigued and since they didn't stick to their initial aims they failed.

    The Guardian

    1)     How many unique digital browsers used the Guardian website in June 2016? 

    120 million monthly unique browsers and a June 2016 daily average of almost 9 million unique browsers, only about one third of whom are from the UK. 

    2)What are The Guardian's latest print sales figures? How does this compare to the Telegraph? 

    The print circulation of the Guardian was only 161,000 whereas The Daily Telegraph was 472,000.

    3)In terms of finances, how much did the Guardian lose in 2015? 

    £70 million.

    4)    What has been The Guardian's strategy for reversing this decline?

    Cutbacks of 20% and shelving of plans for the Midland Goods Shed, a former train depot near GMG’s offices in King’s Cross, which it had planned to use as a public area for community gatherings and events.

    5)    What global event did The Guardian's digital coverage win awards for?

    The Guardian’s reporting on the Paris attacks won praise not only from readers but from the Society of Editors. At their Press Awards for 2015, the Guardian was winner of the Website of the Year.

    6)In your opinion, will the global website strategy be enough to save The Guardian?

    The Guardian prides itself on providing online news content for free, and has so far resisted any temptation to install a ‘paywall.’ However, it does offer subscription services for those who want to download/read the print format online, and it offers a membership programme, which whilst offering some exclusive content and discounted access to events, is effectively a way of sponsoring the Guardian to remain editorially independent.
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    Week 6-

    German MEP Terry Reintke agrees that it’s hard not to let the virtual world impact on her real life. She should know: after she pledged support for Poland’s pro-abortion campaigners, Reintke was subjected to online abuse, including being called “filthy baby killing scorch of the earth”.
    Reintke, who has compiled a European parliament report on empowering women in the digital age, wants to see much more cross-border action and exchange of best practice, to make social media a safer space for women. 
    McGuiness and Reintke were just two of a panel of female MEPs who gathered in the European parliament on 11 October to launch a new report about social media, based on a survey of more than 900 female parliamentarians from 107 different countries. All the MEPs agreed: social media can be an pretty ugly place if you’re a woman in politics.

    Social media naming of Ched Evans's accuser raises legal questions


    Woman who accused the footballer of rape was repeatedly named online, leading to concerns the current law is inadequate

    One of the most extraordinary features of the Ched Evans case was the manner in which the complainant was abused on social media and her identity revealed.
    By the time Evans was jailed in April 2012 she had been named thousands of times. The woman was forced to relocate from her hometown of Rhyl and change her identity but even during the retrial this month, she continued to be named and abused.
    In November 2012 nine people pleaded guilty at Prestatyn magistrates court in north Wales to publishing material likely to lead members of the public to identify the complainant in a rape case, contrary to the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act, 1992.
    Six were from north Wales, including Ched Evans’s cousin Gemma Thomas, three from Sheffield, where Evans played (for United). One tweeted: “She is to blame for her own downfall. Lets find her address.”



    The nine claimed they were not aware naming the woman was a criminal offence and were ordered to pay £624 compensation each.

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    Friday, 14 October 2016

    INDEX: NDM Stories

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    Week 5-

    Revenues at Spotify’s UK business grew to almost £190m last year as subscription income soared by over 40% thanks to music fans flocking to the company’s mobile service.
    Spotify, the world’s biggest music streaming service with an $8.5bn (£6.9bn) valuation, saw total UK revenues rise by 18% from £159m to £187.2m last year. 
    This was fuelled by a 44% surge in subscription revenues from £119m to £171m. 
    “This increase can be attributed to the transition from desktop to mobile as today the majority of new users signing up for Spotify are mobile,” the company said. “2015 was a big year for Spotify and we had some very significant successes. In many ways, it was our best year ever.”
    Subscription income accounts for over 90% of Spotify UK’s total revenues, the remainder comes from advertising.


    I'm with you on the digital revolution, it's the lack of journalism I can't face


    Eleven days ago a newspaper serving a small community in the US state of New Hampshire ceased publication after 90 years.
    The Citizen, a paid-for title based in Laconia, had been hit by rising production costs. Its publisher tried to sell it, but there were no takers.
    Its closure wasn’t too much of a surprise given that Laconia had been the lone city north of Boston served by two local daily papers. So people will still be able to enjoy the freely distributed Laconia Daily Sun.
    But the passing of The Citizen prompted Charlie Arlinghaus, a columnist with the New Hampshire Union Leader, to “take a hard look at the myths surrounding newspapers, news and civic engagement.”
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