Weekly Stories

Apple accuses FBI of violating constitutional rights in iPhone battle

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• FBI’s ‘unprecedented’ request violates free speech law, Apple argues in first legal response to order that it must provide access to San Bernardino shooter’s phone
• Apple’s lawyers believe forcing America’s largest company to help the government crack open one of its iPhones would violate the US constitution and be a misinterpretation of a 227-year-old law.
• The tech firm’s attorneys argue the government seeks “a dangerous power that Congress and the American people have withheld: the ability to force companies like Apple to undermine the basic security and privacy interests of hundreds of millions of individuals around the globe.”

This story covers how Apple accused the FBI of violating constitutional rights. The FBI asked apple if they would allow them to hack into people phones to get more evidence on people they may be looking for. Personally I think that large organisations being able to hack into people phones without them knowing is quite scary.

Smart care: how Google DeepMind is working with NHS hospitals

• A smartphone app piloted by the NHS could improve communication between hospital staff and help patients get vital care faster
• Google DeepMind, the tech giant’s London-based company most famous for itsgroundbreaking use of artificial intelligence, is developing a software in partnership with NHS hospitals to alert staff to patients at risk of deterioration and death through kidney failure.
• The technology, which is run through a smartphone app, has the support of Lord Darzi, the surgeon and former health minister in the Blair government who is director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London.

This story covers how the NHS are considering the development of an app which would make communications within a hospital much more easy. In addition, this will be done through a smart phone app. Personally, i think this is interesting because it shows us how much smartphones have been able to take over our lives and how much we have become dependant on it 

Weekly Story

Sun website traffic up by more than 25%

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/feb/18/sun-website-traffic-news-uk-abcs#img-1

• News UK site soars in January after December dip, as most other national newspaper websites make double-digit gains

• The Sun saw its web traffic soar by more than 25% in January, a welcome recovery after it lost audience in the previous month.

• The Sun’s decline was the smallest in the market in December.
• Following a seasonally low December, there were strong performances across the board.
• Mail Online grew by almost 12%, theguardian.com rose 11.70%, Telegraph.co.uk surged by 14.19%, the Mirror jumped by 20.74% and theindependent.co.uk saw browser numbers rise by 19.14%.
• Mail Online 14,759,451 (+11.96%)
• theguardian.com 8,764,814 (+11.69%)
• Telegraph 4,611,564 (+14.19%)
• Mirror Group Nationals 4,822,666 (+20.74%)
• The Independent 3,331,403 (+19.14%)
• The Sun 1,909,955 (+25.19%)
• Metro 1,418,152 (+26.93%)
• Express.co.uk 1,399,663 (+31.38%)
• Dailystar.co.uk 901,334 (+51.68)

This story covers what the major news company "The sun" has achieved in the last couple of months. The suns website traffic has increased by 25% in the last couple of months. This shows us how there has been changes in new and digital media and The Sun have managed to keep up to date 

The Independent: a newspaper killed by the internet

• After almost 30 years of losing money, it was the cost of publishing a newspaper for so few daily readers – just 40,718 once free or discounted copies are stripped out – that had simply become unsustainable in an age where so much information is free online
• It wasn’t meant to be like this. Back in March 1990, sales of the then four-year old Indy had reached an all-time high of 423,000, eclipsing the Murdoch-owned Times.

This is a story which covers the decline of the newspaper industry and how online content has managed to almost eliminate all newspapers. This story shows us how developments in new and digital media has had an impact on this industry. 

Identities and the Media: Feminism

Are we living in a post-feminist state? Do you agree there is still a need for feminism? To what extent does the media contribute to the identity created for women in popular culture? These are some of the questions we need to consider in this next section of our Identities and the Media unit.

Media Magazine reading

1) Read Playing With The Past: Post-feminism and the Media (MM40, page 64 - our Media Magazine archive is here).

2) What are the two texts the article focuses on?

The first text this article focuses on is Pan Am, which was first broadcasted on ABC in 2011, and it is a period drama set in the early Sixties focusing on the lives of pilots and stewardesses working for the Pan American World Airline. The second text is a Beyonce music video, ‘Why Don’t you Love Me’ Beyoncé parodies the stereotype of the 1950s housewife, clearly intertextually referencing the iconic 1950s pin up girl Betty Paige by taking on the persona of B.B Homemaker, a frustrated housewife.

3) What examples are provided from the two texts of the 'male gaze' (Mulvey)?

"The gaze referring to Laura Mulvey’s seminal article ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ which argues that main stream Hollywood films subject female characters to the ‘male gaze’ of the camera, fragmenting and objectifying their bodies."

"Her star construction perfectly encapsulates the contradictions of post-feminist culture, simultaneously declaring herself as an independent woman, whilst objectifying herself for the camera and the ‘male gaze’."

4) Do texts such as these show there is no longer a need for feminism or are they simply sexism in a different form?

These texts show us that there is no longer a need for feminism as all the examples were from a while ago before any of the feminist waves. 

5) Choose three words/phrases from the glossary of the article and write their definitions on your blog.

Feminism – A movement aimed at defining, establishing, and defending and equality to men.

Post-feminism – An ideology in culture and society that society is somehow past needing feminism and that the attitudes and arguments of feminism are no longer needed.

Nostalgia – A sentimental longing for the past, often only remembering the positives of the time.

Patriarchy – An ideology that places men in a dominant position over women.

Weekly Stories

Twitter 'leaving us in the dark' over state hacking claims, activists say

• When more than 50 political activists from across Europe and North America were told by Twitter in December 2015 that their accounts had been attacked by anonymous “state-sponsored actors”, they had very little to go on.

• One of those targeted was Anne Roth, who has been advising the German Left party during the government’s investigation into US surveillance. She is no stranger to these type of attacks, she said, but when threats come from her own government she has a framework for what to do

This story is talking about how political activist believe that twitter is leaving us in a dark place because of how many of their accounts have been attacked by anonymous "State-Sponsored actors". In my opinion, i think that the hacking of accounts is a serious issue as it could cause major problems and twitter should develop something to prevent hacking from happening.

Yahoo cutting workforce by 15% after announcing $4.4bn loss

• Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer has announced plans to cut the company’s workforce by 15% and close five foreign offices by the end of 2016.

• The struggling tech company reported a $4.4bn loss for the last three months of 2015 as it wrote down the value of assets including Tumblr, the blogging site it bought for $1bn in 2013.

• Yahoo’s fourth quarter earnings for 2015 were better than expected, coming in at $1.27bn. Overall, the revenue for 2015 was $4.9bn, up from $4.6bn the year before. But the company’s traffic acquisition costs (TAC), the amount Yahoo spends to attract users to its websites, rose to $271m in the fourth quarter, up from $74m a year earlier.

This is story which is talking about how the well known company 'Yahoo' is planning to cut workforce by 15% after announcing a loss of $4.4Bn, they also wrote down the value of their assets such as Tumblr which they bought for $1bn in 2013. In my opinion, I think this is interesting because if a company doesn't make enough developments to match the pace of how fast new and digital media is developing it will face major consequences.

Identities: Feminism and new/digital media

1) How might this video contribute to Butler’s idea that gender roles are a ‘performance’?

Butler believed that gender roles are ‘a performance’ and that male and female behaviour is socially constructed rather than the result of biology. This may contribute because in this video Beyonce is doing things which are stereotypically done by males such as fixing a car which would support his theory. 

2) Would McRobbie view Beyonce as an empowering role model for women?

McRobbie is a British cultural theorist known for her work analysing magazines aimed at women and teenage girls in the 80s and 90s, she highlights the empowering nature of magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Glamour, taking a different perspective to traditional feminists.  So therefore, she would view  Beyonce as an empowering role model for women.

3) What are your OWN views on this debate – does Beyonce empower women or reinforce the traditional ‘male gaze’ (Mulvey)?

In my opinion i think that beyonce is reinforcing the traditional 'Male Gaze' in this music video, the reason for this is because of the way she is dressed in this video, although she is trying to empower women by acting differently to the traditional stereotypes, she is still dressing and acting in a way which would support Mulveys 'Male Gaze'

Post-colonialism: Edward Said blog task

1) Summarise the three theorists we have looked at:
Alvarado - Black stereotypes.
Fanon - "White Mask"
Said - Us vs Them, East Vs West, Civilised and Uncivilised.

2) Watch the opening of Yasmin (2004) again. Does it offer a positive or negative view of British Muslims? To what extent does it reinforce or challenge Edward Said's theory of Orientalism - that the west is superior to the exotic or uncivilised east?
From watching the opening scenes of the movie 'Yasmine" we are able to see that Muslims are given both a positive and Negative stereotype. For example, at first we see that the father and the son are awake very early and then make their way to the mosque, in the shots we are also able to see that they are awake before anyone else in town which gives a positive representation of muslims. In addition, we are also able to see that the father is a working man. However, muslims are also given a negative representation. For example, we are able to see that the son of the muslim family wakes up late and looks lazy and uncivilised. 

3) Finally, choose THREE clips for EACH of the theorists and explain how you could apply that theory to the clip. Pick a selection of clips on YouTube from TV, film, music video or advertising and embed them in your blog before writing your analysis under each clip. Note: this means you needNINE clips in total on this blogpost.

Alvarado

This falls under the "Exotic" section as these black characters in the movie 'Straight Outta Compton' are music artist

                                               

This particular clip is linked to the humorous section as the black characters are represrented to be comedians. Also, there is also a sidekick which is Kevin Hart

                                             

This particular clip from the movie 'Menace to Society' reinforces the belief which shows that black characters are Dangerous as they are linked to crime, violence and gangs

Said

This can be linked to Edward Saids theory of orientalism which shows the difference between the civilised and uncivilised

                                      

                                       

                                    

Fanon

This can be linked to the 'infantilize' section of this theory as there are kids in this advert for charity who are made to look cute for sympathy.

                                           

This can be also be linked to fanons theory which belives that black characters are often represented as 'decivilsed' as they may fall under the category of being labelled as gangstas or pimps.

Lastly, this can be linked to either the 'decivilised' part of this theory or the 'Primitivize' 

Weekly Stories

How much are you worth to Facebook?

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/28/how-much-are-you-worth-to-facebook#img-1

• If you live in the UK you’re only worth one-third of a North American to the social network – and if you live elsewhere, it could be even less
• Facebook has set new records for both the number of users it has, far outstripping every other social media company, and the amount of revenue it generates. But how much are you actually worth to Facebook?
• During the Facebook earnings call on Wednesday, the social network revealed that it now has 1.59 billion users that visit it on a monthly basis, world wide, which is up 40 million users since its last report, Q3 2015. That accounts for around 50% of the 3.2 billion internet users globally, according to data from the ITU, and 21.5% of the global population.
• Daily active users were also up, reaching 1.04 billion users, while mobile-only monthly users have increased to 823 million making up 51.7% of the social network’s monthly active users. Mobile Facebook users, of which there are 1.4 billion a month, also account for 80% of Facebook’s revenue, mostly from advertising, which helped it break records and reach $5.841bn in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2015, up over $1.3bn from last quarter.

This is an article which talks about how much social media has had an impact on our society, this article talks about how much each individual is worth. In my opinion I think this was very interesting knowing that a social media site is able to determine how much we are worth as humans

Google says Isis must be locked out of the open web

• Google’s head of ideas, tasked with building tools to fight oppression, has said that to stop Isis being able to publicise itself on the internet requires forcing Isis from the open web.

• Isis propaganda has been effective at spreading information online. It has produced slick videos, hijacked existing social media trends including hashtags, and used bots to spread its messages. Online, it has made itself look bigger and more widespread than it physically is in Syria and surrounding areas.

This is a story which talks about recent comments which Google have made, they said that anything related to isis (which is an extremist terrorist group) should be locked out from the internet. The reason for this is the videos that they release are very extreme. In my opinion, i think that they should only block out the violent content and keep the other information so that people could research it.