WEEK 6

Today was the first part in a two part series on different types of media. For the lecture today the focus was ‘commercial’ media, while the following week will look at ‘public’ media. Commercial media is primarily funded by advertising and sponsors as opposed to government funding; typical examples are commercial channels such as channel 7 and 9, Fairfax/News ltd newspapers and commercial radio stations like Nova and B105.  Dr Redman gave a frank account of the reasons why commercial media exists, outlining that advertisers are the real customers of these ventures, not the public. 

An interesting question raised by Dr Redman in the lecture was the role of commercial media in a democratic society: can companies that exist on the basis of making money also act to serve the public interest?  Redman gave no definite answers to this question, but I could sense some doubt in his demeanour.  My own personal belief is no: It seems that the reporting on Fox News and Sky TV consistently convey a right wing agenda that serve Rupert Murdoch’s own political interests.

Dr Redman succeeded in creating an enjoyable lecture out of a topic that easily could have been bland and yawn-inducing.  I found particularly entertaining John McManus’s blunt assessment of commercial media as corrupt, lacking quality, and where profits over-ride responsibility, as well as Professor Bromley’s follow up quote which conveyed a similar opinion.  Next week’s lecture on Public media should be very interesting.

WEEK 5

This week we looked at the use of visuals in storytelling.  Dr Bruce Redman started by looking at the different ways in which images are used on the internet such as youtube, twitter, facebook, flickr.  He then gave us a selected history of the importance of illustrations in human history, starting with the early cave paintings of the Aborigines, illustrations used in the kama sutra, and church windows depicting bible scenes.  The earliest illustrations used in journalism hark back to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s, and the first colour photo was published in 1936 in the Scottish Daily Mail.

It was interesting to hear Redman’s take on the rise of Instagram and just how widely it is used these days, and also his statistics on the amount of photos currently on facebook and flickr (well in the billions!). Other topics Redman’s discussed in the lecture were the convenience of being able to instantly upload a photo (from a journalist perspective), and the growing reliance of airbrush in photography and whether it’s existence was a blessing or a curse. He gave us numerous examples of stars and models whose images had been modified.  One that was particularly funny was Taylor Swift whose face had been over-brushed into an android  looking being for a Russian magazine cover.

The next part of the lecture was more subjective.  Bruce showed us a few photos from an event and asked us which one was the most powerful.  It was interesting to hear different people’s opinions on which picture they thought was the most emotionally engaging. Redman went on to show us numerous examples of great photography in journalism. The final phase of the lecture was the evolution of moving picture; this was perhaps the most fascinating part of lecture, seeing how news had developed from the early newsreels to the over-saturated 24 hr news cycle seen in today’s culture.  Redman also commented that the sophistication of technology has resulted in much more instantaneous news. An example of this was the London Bombings of 2005 where spectators uploaded their photos as the events were still happening.  A great lecture, one of my favourites so far!

WEEK 4

Because of the Ekka, lectures and tutorials were cancelled this week, so we were given the task of listening to a sound recording on blackboard.  This was an interesting listen, the first part was an interview with talkback ABC radio presenter Richard Fidler.  Richard was a surprisingly humble guest who didn’t even consider himself to be a proper journalist.  Despite his self-deprecating manner, his advice on conducting an effective interview was very interesting. Fidler’s technique is the ‘less is more’ approach: By giving his guests the space to tell their story, and genuinely listening and taking an interest in what they have to say, he finds they eventually open up and momentarily forget they are on a radio program.  It was also interesting to hear Fidler’s life story and how he wound up as an ABC presenter.

The second part was another ABC presenter Steve Austin talking about his journey from motorcycle enthusiast to radio host. I found this less interesting than the first segment, despite the fact that I am a regular Austin listener in the mornings. Austin took himself a lot more seriously than Fidler, but definitely had some great things to say.  Austin is convinced that radio is where audiences can truly tell if a guest is being insincere or not, as it does not have visuals to distract, it is based purely on the inflections in someone’s voice. Austin went on to describe his various programs on ABC radio and how he varies his interviewing style to suit the context of the program.

 I found both of these segments to be thoroughly worthwhile listens; it was interesting that both the guests had ended up in jobs they had not necessarily envisioned at the start. As someone who is aspiring to specialise in political journalism, it demonstrated that opportunities that arise in life can lead you down unexpected avenues.

WEEK 3

For today’s lecture a guest speaker, Skye Doherty, was brought in to inform us about the use of text in journalism. I found the talk at times engrossing and a little tedious.  The breakdown of ‘what is text’ segment was a little long-winded and patronising, however Skye’s facts on the methods newspapers use to attract the attention of readers was were interesting for me: apparently the most eye-catching area to place a story is in the left hand corner of a page, and then highlighting in bold and enlarging the font for further noticeability so it stands out above the other less important stories.

The lecture was also useful in learning some important keywords employed in everyday journalism, such as hyperlinks, hypertext, tags and metadata. It was also interesting to hear about how the advancing mediums (such as articles written for internet tablets) have an individual layout compared to the traditional newspaper articles; headlines need to be more direct and referential in order to come up in google searches, and articles in general have the added feature of links (or hyperlinks) to other articles on the news website that newspapers can’t deliver.

On the whole this lecture was an educational experience, and probably one of the most important of the semester. I will make sure come back to the recording of this lecture when I am writing my feature article in September!

WEEK 2

Dr Bruce Redman’s lecture in second week focused on the differences between traditional media and online media. Traditional media encompassed everything before the internet (newspapers, magazines, radio, and tv) while online media was pretty much everything accessed on the world wide web.  Dr Redman began by examining ‘web iterations’ (Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web 3.0).  It was fascinating to learn how online media had morphed from a straightforward marketing tool into something extremely interactive and complex over the course of 15 or so years.

I loved Dr Redman’s use of video in this presentation. I am always delighted to see an IT Crowd epsidoe and he used two hilarious segments that effectively satirised a number of issues around social networking nites (this was from the Friendface episode).  The segments parodised the more absurd elements of facebook, as well as the more terrifying (ie the fact that all your details are now available for the government or companies to access).

The second half of the lecture looked at the death of the newspaper due to news being available for free on the web, and attempts in the present day to make people pay for the news (ie through tablets, ipads, and subscriptions).  Dr Redman suggested subscription model are probably the most effective strategy to keep news profitable, as this was in fact the method employed by newspapers in the earliest days of print media. Dr Redman went on to make some funny jokes at Rupert Murdoch’s expense, and gave some interesting facts on how Murdoch makes a bulk of his cash.