![Student no: s13161812 Reflective Response to Reading – Week 7 MED4105
3 | P a g e
Gemma Harris
Bibliography:
BBC - Media Centre. 2014. Incoming BBC Director-General Tony Hall announces changes to
BBC’s senior team. [online] Available at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/tony-hall-senior-team.html
[Accessed: 15 Mar 2014].
Fenton, N. 2010. New media, old news. Los Angeles: SAGE.
Loon, J. V. & MyiLibrary. 2007. Media technology. Maidenhead: Open University Press.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/reflectiveresponsetoreading-week7-140322065502-phpapp01/85/Week-7-Reflective-Response-to-Reading-3-320.jpg)
Week 7 - Reflective Response to Reading
- 1. Student no: s13161812 Reflective Response to Reading – Week 7 MED4105 1 | P a g e Gemma Harris The key argument of the author in this week’s reading is that the developments of technology are changing the way citizens consume news. It’s suggested established traditional news organisations are seeing a decline in citizens. The fear is that new consumption will keep increasing meaning traditional news consumption may collapse altogether. However, the author then continues to say we should consider other factors impacting in the news collapse. An important point is the structure of news organisations in relation to the public sphere and the changes due to certain factors. It’s stated that *news+ “has always had a special status in facilitating a public sphere by providing elites with a powerful channel of influence and publics with at least some of the information necessary to participate in democratic life.” This suggests news has always had an important status in society and advertising contributes to this as it’s a “powerful channel of influence”. The changes in advertising have caused news organisations structure in society and the journalist role to change. The internet’s increased role in news sharing and advertising has had an impact on the structure of journalism as it has an “ability to connect advertisers directly to consumers without the mediation of a newspaper.” This means that journalist’s roles have changed to retain their importance within society by finding “more ‘efficient’ ways of working through multi- skilling”. (Fenton, 2010, p. 36-41). A real example of this is structural changes that BBC’s Tony Hall set in place for the organisations senior management team. It affected James Purnell, although not a journalist before, his role broadened. It’s also more digitally involved to plan for the next decade. His new job title is ‘Director, Strategy & Digital’ involving marketing strategies online. This
- 2. Student no: s13161812 Reflective Response to Reading – Week 7 MED4105 2 | P a g e Gemma Harris shows the adaptations to structures that news organisations have had to enforce. (BBC – Media Centre, 2014). This broadening of job roles means that individuals are tackling more areas by themselves. The reason more areas of jobs have become available is because of growth of news formats. This results in mass communication and more opportunities for audiences to gain democratic information “there are approaches to understanding media that primarily understand it as a means of (mass) communication”. Some theorists see “media as a means of (once again) political communication within everyday life settings of popular culture.” (Loon & MyiLibrary, 2008, p. 7). Within mass communication alterations of dominant ideologies occur, changing the structure of society. A new investigation could be “How has technology innovation altered the structure of journalism with the involvement of PR?” A suitable methodology would be an ethnography of a digital news organisation in order to consider the changes in structure. In conclusion, the knowledge I gained is that technological developments have had huge impacts on the structure of news organisations, through advertising, consequently affecting society’s structure.
- 3. Student no: s13161812 Reflective Response to Reading – Week 7 MED4105 3 | P a g e Gemma Harris Bibliography: BBC - Media Centre. 2014. Incoming BBC Director-General Tony Hall announces changes to BBC’s senior team. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/tony-hall-senior-team.html [Accessed: 15 Mar 2014]. Fenton, N. 2010. New media, old news. Los Angeles: SAGE. Loon, J. V. & MyiLibrary. 2007. Media technology. Maidenhead: Open University Press.