- Initially we were told that he died of a heart attack, bought on by natural causes but a week later The Gaurdian obtained footage which had been shot by an American investment fun manager and showed Tomlinson being struck on the leg from behind by a police officers with a baton and then being pushed to the ground by the same officer.
When journalists asked if he had been in contact with police before his death they were told that speculation would only upset family.
Evening Standard reported that the police had attempted to help him but an eyewitness account said that was not true. It was protestors not police who had tried to help.
Video shows that the protestors stopped hurling objects at the police when they realised that someone was hurt.
First video published by The Guardian
Channel 4 then released another video- had been filming something else and this was in the background.
Footage shot by freelance journalist Nabella Zahir- showed that there had not been a barrage of objects being thrown at the police whilst they were trying to save him, which the police had claimed.
The Guardian said that the police mislead journalists. They had told them he had died of natural causes and that his family had not been surprised to hear that he had died of a heart attack.
Reporters who approached the corners directly were refused comment.
The morning The Guardian published photographs, his family visted scene and gave personal contact details to the journalist, Paul Lewis, and asked him to stay in contact if he found out any more about his death.
Guardian handed video to IPCC as evidence.
Some said that the extensive reporting of the story crossed the line in which people become obsessed with finding photographs and films of his last moment, designed to whip up outrage.
Guardian criticised for burning their brand name onto the video so that when ever it was watched, their name appeared.
- Boris Johnson called the coverage an ‘orgy of cop bashing’.
Monday, 4 April 2011
News coverage of Ian Tomlinson’s death at the G20 summit
Virtual revolution- Episode 2
Virtual revolution: Episode 2
Enemy of the state?
Anyone who wants to participate has a least the means to participate.
Powerful tool for the state to control us.
Old centres of power are crumbling
History is littered with unintended circumstances.
Iran put a ban on any media reporting in country- turned to Twitter. 200,000 tweets about Iran posted every hour at it’s heights.
Messages forwarded to a larger audience. Key link from protestors to outside world.
Info placed in the hands of people making it like ‘quick silver- irrepressible and uncontainable’.
Soon you tube was involved- millions witnessed a woman dying because of regime.
Shaking up world politics because it can transmit info globally from the hands of people who have seen it first hand.
Use the power of info to inspire other people and uprising- done this through Twitter.
Twitter didn’t cause the uprising, but they could use it to help them do something about it.
Internet works against central control- that’s why information can be spread. Data can be transported through various roots- this would cause problems or the government for years to come.
Internet links up ¼ of the world
Individual countries like Iran cannot just shut the internet down, even if they wanted to.
In 20th century, if you had something to say in public you couldn’t.
Not a controlled environment- number of individuals who can do what they want with information.
With computers we are all on a level playing field- one person can take on a government.
Web gives citizens power to root around censorship and access allows them to point out wrong doings.
Younger generations feel left out by politics, in the past they were limited as to where they could express their views but now they can just log on to the internet.
Before communities were only ones they could be physically present in- now you don’t have to be.
Posted a membership list of BMP, classified army documents, contents of Sarah Palin’s private yahoo account to access public records etc…
Over 1.2 billion pages.
No logs
Military grade inscriptions to protect
Under constant attack
Court injunction by bank following wikileaks published claims of tax invasions- first time had been attacked
Got taken offline- just got people more interested. People became interested in the stories of Wikileaks.
Taking them offline didn’t work. There web address just changes slightly. Information is still out there.
What difference has web 2.0 made to the distribution and consumption of news and are bold claims that ‘everything has changed’ an accurate one?
Over time, the way in which we consume news has changed. In the past, we would have relied on receiving our news from papers, the radio, letters, telegrams and even the cinema. The advent of web 1.0 meant we could then read our newspapers online but this has progressed even further with developments in the internet and the evolution into web 2.0. Now, as well as simply consuming our news online through the newspapers websites, we can be the be the ones that spread the news, break the news and even make the news thanks to the help of social networking sights such as Facebook and Twitter.
Social networking has undoubtedly played a key role in the change of the distribution and consumption of news. Site’s such as Twitter and Facebook allow us, as well as well established newspapers such as The Guardian and The Times who have profiles on both of these websites, to draw the attention of our ‘friends’ or ‘followers’ to particular stories that we are personally interested in or feel needs to be heard or in the case of the reputable news providers, any breaking news story or articles in their paper on that day. Twitter’s impact on the way we consume news is evident when we look at the reaction to a story published by the Daily Mail following the death of Stephen Gatley. High profile celebrities such as Stephen Fry and Darren Brown used their profile pages to express contempt for the article and by doing so drew attention to a larger crowd then just Daily Mail readers. Social networking would support the claim that ‘everything has changed’ in one sense because it can be used to spread information at a rate that would have been impossible with the use of more traditional forms of media. This is also true of the instance when Twitter was used by protestors in Iran following the elections. All forms of media were banned from entering the country, but through Twitter, the people who were involved in what was happening in Iran were able to draw attention to the story through the use of Twitter. It was the only form of communicating they had with the rest of the world and at it’s peak 200,000 tweets were being sent in an hour. This meant that anyone, anywhere in the world could know what was happening, not just those directly involved. Whilst this is endurably a good thing, what it also means is that we are in danger of limiting the genre of news that we consume because sites such as Facebook and Twitter are likely to lead us only to the stuff that we are interested in as these are the only web pages that we will open.
This is also the problem we consider that because of 2.0 we now consume our news through apps on mobile phones and i-pads. These apps are likely to be very specialised, for example the Sky Sports News app will only give information on sport and not any other news stories. Whilst apps like this allow us to perhaps find out more specific details about the area that we are reading about, as they only have to concentrate on one area, it still means that we are possibly narrowing the variety of news we consume.
Apps and social networking sites, however, do mean that we are constantly up to date with any developments in news stories. In the past, we would have relied on newspapers to give us information once a day. By the time consumers would have read that article, there may have already been developments in that story and instantly the news is out of date. Web 2.0 means that we can access up to date news stories all the time and in this instance ‘everything has changed’. As consumers we now demand that our news is as up to date as it can possibly be. This was something that many felt was a failure of the iPad, as the stories did not seem to be the latest news stories.
As a result of the evolution of the internet, we are also able to interact with news. On newspaper websites there is the chance for readers to comment on the article they have just read and the use of blogs means that any one can express an opinion on a news story. Before web 2.0, there is no way that the opinion of so many people could have the chance to be heard by so many.
Overall the main difference that web 2.0 seems to have made to our consumption of news is that we are able to access information a lot quicker. In the case of Stephen Gatley’s death, because the news stories had been spread on the social networking site Twitter, there was more then 1,000 complaints by 7 pm of the same day the story was published. Without the internet it is doubtful that there would have been as many complaints in this short a period of time. This seems to be the biggest change that web 2.0 has given the news. Whilst this suggests that ‘everything has changed’ and in this instance for the better, the developments are also somewhat a detriment to the consumption of news. It means that now we only read the stories we want to read, whilst in the past where the only source of consumption would have been on a radio or a TV news bulletin, we would have had to have listened to all of the newsgroups
Is 'Ugly' Betty a sterotype?
Series 1 Episode 1. I am Not Going to Sell Herbalux
- Appearance: Glasses, braces, bad clothes, bad hair etc..
- She is smart- ‘up and comers on the London art seen’ and the situation in Darfor. She is not necessarily
- She is not self confident in herself. The women she is surrounded by in the office all seem so confident. She bumps into draws when she walks in. This can be seen when she is modelling in part 3.
- Whilst not the stereotypical woman who works in magazine, she is the stereotypical outcast.
- She is the complete opposite of the women who work in fashion. She doesn’t gossip. This contrast is shown in the shots with her and the other women in the office. She seems, polite, nice and genuine.
- No one wants to sit with her at launch. The only friend she finds is the other outcast- the woman who works in the fashion closet.
- She is similar to Andy in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’. They both have no interest in clothes, no clue about fashion and want to be serious writers.
- Both seen taking calls from their editors in the middle of the night, doing mundane tasks for their bosses and conflicts between home life and work, because of the amount of time they spend working.
- Geeky kid being laughed at by the ‘cool’ kids- American teen comedy films. ‘Treats me like dirt’ (Part 3). Humiliated when modelling in part 3.
- Weak- doesn’t stand up for herself initially.
- Looks after family. She has no mother.
- Ambitious- she wants to break out of her surroundings and make a better life for herself. Her sister thinks she needs to be more realistic with her aspirations (Part 3).
Monday, 21 March 2011
“Representations in the media are often simplistic and reinforce dominant ideologies so that audiences can make sense of them”. To what extent is this true of the social group you have studied?
Throughout different forms of media, there is a number of representations of women. These representations often feed the preconceived stereotypes that we have of women. Magazines, TV dramas and films reinforce dominant ideologies on different types of women, for example the career women and the housewives, and the idea of beauty.
Adverts often reinforce the ideals of beauty and shape the idea of what we as consumers believe beauty is. Adverts in magazines, particularly adverts for beauty products, often reinforce the ideas of what a beautiful woman looks like. Cheryl Cole’s adverts for L’Oreal show a slim woman, with long glossy hair and perfect skin. This representation of women is found across media texts, but in particular in adverts for beauty and hair products, which all seem to reinforce the same ideologies of what it means to be beautiful. For example the same representation that is present in the L’Oreal advert is also presented to us in Anna Firel’s adverts for Pantene and Zooey Deschanel for Rimmel. These Images help reinforce feminist writer Germain Greer’s theory that “every woman knows that regardless f her achievements, she is a failure if she is not beautiful” because “magazines financed by the beauty industry teach little girls that they need make up and train them to use it, so establishing their lifelong reliance on beauty products”. These representations of women are fairly simplistic as they only offer one model for how they believe women should look or at least want to look. Whilst this simplistic representation of women could help an audience make sense of what our belief a beautiful woman is, it offers very little alternative and encourages women to look all one way and not express individualism.
The character of Bree in ‘Desperate Housewives’ also conforms to a simplistic and well established representation of women. She is a typical housewife, who we believe enjoys cooking and cleaning and this seems to be the only role that she has. She does not have a job. This is a very traditional view of women, and this idea of her being a step ford wife is something that TV dramas are beginning to step away from. This character however shows that this stereotypical woman is still present on our screens. This stereotype perhaps helps us understand the character better as we feel that we already know a lot about her as we have already judged her on what her role is within a family. It does however feed the stereotypical role and notion of what a housewife is like, which supports Stuart Prices assessment that “ideologies of gender promote sexist representations of women”.
In the same programme, the character of Lynette shows a perhaps more contemporary view of what a working mother is. Whilst Bree is a character in a modern drama, many of her characteristics would be seen as being very traditional. Lynette on the other hand is a woman who shows the struggles of being a stay at home mum. She shows that it is hard to be at home constantly with your children and shows a woman, who was once a very successful business woman, struggling to come to terms with the fact she no longer holds the same status in the work place and her feeling that she is losing her identity. This is a far less simplistic view of women, then the one that is presented to us of Bree and may be more difficult for us as an audience to understand because of this. However this is still a woman who represents what is the lives of far more women then the character of Bree does and perhaps women are able to relate to her more so and understand her better because of this.
There is signs of there being more complex characters present in the media, such as Lynette from Desperate Housewives, however more simplistic and conventional representations of women are still present, highlighted by the presence of the ‘step ford wife’ like figure of Bree in the same drama. Adverts also seem to be a clear indication of just how simplistic some of the dominant ideologies pushed on us by the media are, as they only seem to present one ideal of beauty. Whilst there is some alternatives such as the Dove adverts for real women, these are very rare, and often they use this as their selling point rather then the product itself.
Monday, 14 March 2011
The development of the Bond Girls
The girls are often victims who often need to be rescued by Bond, his love interest, play a more direct involvement in the Bond’s assignment and play a important role in the success of the mission.
Honey Ryder in Dr.No (1962)
Bond: Sean Connery
Actress: Ursula Andress
She is the star of arguably the most iconic bond moment. She emerges from the sea in a white bikini singing “Underneath the Mango Tree” holding shells. The moment has been recreated many times since.
In this clip you get a climpse of her feisty nature. Following the death of her father she has learned to fend for herself and at first is reluctant to listen to what Bond tells her to do. She is a strong minded woman and unlike many other Bond girls who followed her, she does not fall for his charms straight away and does not sleep with him until after the mission is complete.
Mary Goodnight in The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)
Bond: Roger Moore
Actress: Britt Ekland
She is an inexperienced field agent working in Hong Kong. She is out of her depth when in the mission that she is on with Bond and end’s up in more trouble then she initially expects to find herself in. This is a negative portrayal of women as it is suggesting she is weak and not as competent at her job as a man, such as Bond is. Her weakness is also shown through the fact she has to be rescued by Bond after she is kidnapped and trapped in the boot of a car.
Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
Bond: Pierce Brosnon
Actress: 
She is a completely different Bond girl to Mary Goodnight. She is very much competent at her job and proves to be a match for the men, breaking a female stereotype. She is an equal to Bond as she is a secret agent for the Chinese People’s External security force. Like Bond she too has access to gadgets and even claims that her watch, an Omega Seamaster, which is a watch Bond is famous for wearing, is an improvement on James’.
Despite all this, she still has to be rescued by Bond after she has been captured for trying to destroy an engine control room, reverting back to the classic role for women in a bond film.
Vesper Lynd in Casino Royal (2006)
Bond: Daniel Craig
Actress:
We initially believe that she works for the Treasury Department but later learn that she is really a double agent working for MVD, showing that she can outsmart Bond and showing her intelligence. At the same time, once we learn about her true identity she seems somewhat detached and ruthless. She also does not initially fall for Bond’s charm and the pair do not get together until later on in the film. She is also the only Bond girl that he seems to genuinely fall in love with, and this is why he is most effected by her death then the demise of any other Bond girl.
Monday, 7 March 2011
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