NETFLIX to set BBFC ratings

Netflix to set its own age ratings for film and television programmes. 

Film regulation just got more complicated ...

The BBFC has loosened its monopoly on film ratings, allowing Netflix to set its own age ratings (using the BBFC categories and logos), stating that the scale of Netflix content and additions is too much for the organisation's workforce to cope with. They'll do a monthly sample to check Netflix ratings meet and are consistent with BBFC standards.

There are powerful arguments for and against this:

+ its an overdue response from the BBFC to the explosion of streamed content not tied to traditional TV companies/stations/broadcasters+ checks are in place to ensure ratings are consistent with existing standards+/- its an extension of free-market ideology, favoured by right-wingers (usually opposed to state control; the public sector)- its an extension of censorship (if you accept arguments that age ratings = censorship)- will Netflix really be as accountable as the BBFC, who publish details (parental guide) with every age rating decision?

Netflix has been given the power to set its own official age ratings for its films and television programmes, in a move that could spell the end for the traditional role of the British film censor. 

Under a first-of-its-kind deal announced on Thursday, the British Board of Film Classification will allow the US streaming giant to rate its own material and then use the official British age rating symbols on all of its content. 

“Because of the sheer amount of material that’s out there it’s not logistically viable for the BBFC to view everything in the traditional way,” said Craig Lapper, the BBFC’s head of compliance. “We’re going to permit them to produce BBFC ratings by applying our guidelines and standards to their content.” 

At the moment only films or DVDs which have been watched and assessed by an in-house BBFC employee can carry the recognisable U, PG, 12, 15 or 18 logos.Under the new system Netflix will essentially be allowed to mark its own homework. The BBFC will carry out a monthly audit on a selection of programmes to make sure the streaming service is meeting its side of the bargain. During the year-long pilot Netflix will use an algorithm to rank its own content in line with BBFC guidelines, based on its existing human-created database of programme content.

CHOMSKY ADVERTISER FILTER Stop Funding Hate D Mail campaign

FEB 2018 UPDATE: The campaign continues to have traction, an interesting reversal of the history of left-wing papers struggling to gain advertising. Not that we can say the Mail is struggling yet, other than with the general disruption of digitisation, with the online migration of advertising.
The campaign got multiple replies from advertisers pledging to cease placing ads in the Mail after tweeting about a Richard Littlejohn column condemning two gay dads, including celebrity swimmer Tom Daley.

Guardian: Center Parcs pulls Daily Mail ads after column against same-sex parents.

SFH aims to reduce what it sees as the baleful, malevolent influence over UK democracy (such as it is) and public opinion by pressuring advertisers with potential boycotts.

Peter Preston here recalls how left-wing reportage was discouraged through government encouraging advertisers to withdraw from newspapers that were critical of government 'defence' (ie, war!) policy, specifically the Suez crisis.

He develops a valid point - though once more here we can see the potential for social media and we media to have a greater impact on the poor practices of the press industry than the self-reliant IPSO.

Guardian: Bullying Paperchase and the Mail’s other advertisers just hurts everyone.

PCC IPSO effectiveness the arguments FOR

A bullet-pointed, abbreviated list; everything I refer to below is covered in more detail elsewhere in this blog and/or handouts (many of which are also embedded within posts).

IPSO
There is very little change from PCC to IPSO, but there is some:
IPSO has exercised a new power (still no sanctions if papers refuse though) to insist on front page corrections: it has forced The S*n to do this over a false claim about Jeremy Corbyn, and the Daily Express (in Dec 2016) for claiming English is dying out in schools; they have also forced The Times to do this.
The Editor's Code was revised for 2016, now including headlines within Clause 1 (Accuracy)
Part of this revision was to explicitly require SWIFT resolution of complaints.
They have increased the non-industry representation on their board
They have shown a much greater willingness to consider third party complaints, something the PCC was criticised (by the Culture Select Committee) for routinely threatening to do (The Express '311 languages spoken in our schools' story about the decline of spoken English was one example)
They have been much more assertive over website content, notably including US editions - even more notably, this includes ruling against the Mail Online, the world's leading newspaper online and the newspaper group many accuse IPSO of being run by

PCC
There are very few examples to convincingly argue that the press have been effectively regulated, but all of these points can be raised:
- the PCC consistently highlighted high 'satisfaction ratings' in their annual reviews
- despite all the contrary evidence, they did get fulsome praise from Tony Blair and David Cameron
- (and, when FINALLY responding to Calcutt's 1993 recommendation to replace the PCC with statutory regulation, the 1995 Tory gov praised the PCC)
- Prince William held a 'thankyou party' for the PCC and national editors (we'll consider this more later)
- by encouraging non-legal resolutions to disputes (ie, not the courts, expensive lawyers), they arguably made resolution more attainable for ordinary people
- a glib argument, rather hypocritically used by a press who leave to scream for state regulation of TV/film/ads/web, but still important: the press remains (notionally...) free from state/political interference; we have a 'free press' in the UK unlike many authoritarian nations (China etc)
- a linked point: it was/is self-funding: it costs the taxpayer nothing (ditto the BBFC), unlike OfCom (around £100m a year)
- the PCC argued that the numbers of cases 'resolved' itself indicated success, and that every correction or removal of article/picture proves their effectiveness
- three notable improvements from the PCC over the GCP and Press Council that preceded it: (1) lay membership become dominant; this wasn't just a press body judging the press, but also many non-press outsiders (2) it had a published 'Editor's Code' which set out the grounds on which complaints could be made and on which they would be judged [the PC did this in their final year, but essentially neither the GCP nor PC made the basis of judgements, or an open set of standards, known] (3) as is now accepted practice across the board for media regulators (the BBFC in particular highlights this, labelling their published information 'BBFC Insight' and specifically proclaiming this as a service for parents), the PCC publish their Code and judgements on a website, as well as detailed annual reports
There are few respectable sources who will offer up arguments for the PCC specifically, though there are more who will argue the wider point in favour of self-regulation; I recommend in particular looking for the 'Peter Preston' tag in the tagcloud. A former Guardian editor who also briefly served on the PCC, he continues to pen articles strongly advocating self-regulation, and even defending the record of the PCC. He insists that they do a better job than statutory regulators like OfCom. The PCC's website itself naturally contains useful material arguing that it is an effective regulator.

The counter-argument is overwhelming, but you mustn't make the mistake of simply ignoring the points above. Its also worth stressing that the apparent failure of self-regulation isn't a direct argument for statutory regulation: it is simply a reflection that the form and nature of the self-regulation we have had has been ineffective. The GCP, PC and PCC have all been largely reactive bodies, mainly responding to complaints (as explicitly highlighted in the PCC's very name), although the PCC did occasionally intervene when contacted with pre-publication concerns by those who would be impacted by planned articles. It also remained too dominated by press figures, despite the numbers of lay people involved. If a tougher regime, with the power to fine (as Leveson recommended, but the press rejected, and IPSO won't have), to enforce corrections within a timescale and on a page/size of its choosing, or even, as had been discussed, inflicting tax on papers who repeatedly breached the agreed standards or, like Desmond, just refused to come under the regulatory system ... then self-regulation may very well be effective.
So, before going into the many reasons for and examples of ineffective press self-regulation, do remember that this is not necessarily proof that self-regulation doesn't work - just that the style and approach of a system that, for example, ignores issues around press ownership, is (and surely will be with the not-so-different IPSO?) ineffective, as can clearly be seen by the consistently poor standards of our national press.

IPSO asserts rule over US website Mail Scientology article

What makes this significant is not so much the appearance of IPSO being tougher than its abysmal predecessor, but its assertion over UK newspaper websites run in another country, an area of much uncertainty.

As ever with press regulation, the principles aren't necessarily so clearcut - this is a good thing, right?
Yes and no...
YES: the press has been using this as a means to get round regulation, and their foreign sites blend unique localised content with material from the main site/paper.
NO: isn't it unfair that rival US papers have no such concerns? Also: This is now a clearly globalised market - does a UK regulator make sense?

Digitisation has severely muddied the waters of regulation.

Mail Online refused to defend its story, saying the events had taken place in the US, and the piece was commissioned, written and edited by journalists working in its American operation. 

As a result it was designed to comply with US law and journalistic conventions, not UK ones as regulated by Ipso.Ipso rejected this and said the Mail Online article had failed to follow UK rules on inaccurate, misleading or distorted information. 

“[Mail Online] had not demonstrated the process by which it had regard for the complainant’s previous denials of the allegations,|” said Ipso.  

“Nor had it explained why it had failed to include his representative’s position, explained prior to publication, that the allegations which had been put to him were untrue. It had also failed to provide a defence of the accuracy of the article, or its decision not to publish a correction.” 

Ipso ordered Mail Online to publish its adjudication on the case in full on its website with a link on its homepage for 24 hours. 

Scientology leader's complaint over Mail Online's Tom Cruise story upheld.

BBFC some pointers

BBFC + Wiki. MPAA + Wiki.

Can the BBFC maintain acceptance in our digital age? The organisation has moved on hugely since the ultra-conservative head James Ferman finally retired, but is still open to ridicule in the nature of this Ali G snippet...


A self-regulator with statutory backing (arguably just as Leveson would have liked the new press regulator to be, certainly if any PCC replacement didn't quickly prove itself as effective, though the 'Royal Charter' notion is not as direct as the 1984 Video Recordings Act).

The British Board of Film Classification is an independent, non-governmental body which has classified cinema films since it was set up in 1912 and videos/ DVDs since the Video Recordings Act was passed in 1984.

 That's the BBFC's self-description. The Wiki is useful.

Julian Petley, author of many books on censorship (including one called ... Censorship!), and renowned opponent of censorship, argues that like many non-governmental censors it fulfils a useful role for government, keeping them out of controversy yet generally reflecting the will of government.

TV WATERSHED Australia dilutes regulations citing digitisation

Could this point the way to the UK's future direction? The Aussie regulator ACMA, facing down objections from 'children's' groups (a misnomer really for these conservative, often religious, pressure groups who seek to dictate what kids can/not see), has diluted the restrictions and time blocks of their version of the watershed.

For all the free market rhetoric of the Tory government, who seek now to privatise C4 and whose undermining of the BBC points the same way, the moral guardian stance continues here. The UK has recently seen a tightening of watershed regulations, with the Beeb effectively extending it! 

Regulation suits a deregulatory party just fine when it provides positive headlines in the Mail and other absurdly hypocritical right-wing papers.

The logic of the Australian regulator chief, Chapman, is hard to argue with, but logic won't determine UK policy at least until after the 2015 election!

Chapman said the changing media landscape meant “responsibility will be increasingly shared”.“The digital era has brought many challenges for broadcasters, and there were aspects of the previous code which made it difficult for them to respond and innovate,” Chapman said.“Since the previous code was registered in late 2009, there have been tremendous shifts in the media landscape,” Chapman said. “Many of the provisions in the earlier code had been around for 20 years or so – from an analog era where viewers could only source content from three commercial free-to-air channels and two national broadcasting channels.“The digital era has also brought challenges for viewers, and the new code is designed to assist them to better manage their own viewing in an environment in which responsibility will be increasingly shared between government, industry and, importantly, viewers (citizens).

M-rated shows to be broadcast an hour earlier under new commercial TV code. 

Music Video regulation: collected articles

I'll use this post to draw together links on this topic - use the tag and you'll find earlier posts on this, and I will be separately blogging more on this. Its a useful case study as it brings to the fore so many issues:

• Globalisation: UK regulation only to (compulsorily; likes of VEVO are volunteering theirs) apply to videos produced in UK?
• Digitisation: with YouTube's weak controls as just one example, do we really think this block digital t(w)eens from accessing these videos?!
• Politics and moral panic: this is a convenient, socially conservative issue on which the government can win favour from the right-wing press, just as was the case with the 80s 'video nasty' campaign
• Gender: is there a risk of penalising and continuing to render taboo female sexuality? OR is this an important corrective to the pornification of culture?
• Children: you can't decouple this from the digitisation and gender issues above. Should we be concerned that government gets to influence what is released/accessible in popular culture? Could such powers once granted spread beyond the initial, explicit intent? Is there research into effects to back up the need for this regulation?

ARTICLES FOR FURTHER READING:

IPSO initial review, June 2015

IPSO was launched on September 8th, 2014, following lengthy disagreement amongst the (then) three major parties on how to implement the Leveson Inquiry's Report on Press Standards. Here's how the Wiki describes it - note the scepticism ('claims'):

IPSO claims to be an independent regulator of the newspaper and magazine industry, and exists to promote and uphold the highest professional standards of journalism in the UK, and to support members of the public in seeking redress where they believe that the Editor's Code of Practice been breached. The Editors' Code deals with issues such as accuracy, invasion of privacy, intrusion into grief or shock and harassment. IPSO is able to consider concerns about editorial content in newspapers and magazines, and about the conduct of journalists.IPSO handles complaints, and conducts its own investigations into editorial standards and compliance. It also undertakes monitoring work, including by requiring publications to submit annual compliance reports. IPSO has the power, where necessary, to require the publication of prominent corrections and critical adjudications, and may ultimately fine publications in cases where failings are particularly serious and systemic.

KEY BASIC POINTS:

DIGITISATION v DEMOCRACY? Is We Media/UGC death of 4th Estate?

IN A NUTSHELL: Greenslade argues that the brave new digital world of de-staffed media outlets is of grave concern, and profoundly anti-democratic:

This is not the collaborative journalism we sought, the citizen journalism that we have been so enthusiastic about since the dawn of the net. It is churnalism. It is the appearance of journalism, a bogus activity. [Democracy will die if professional journalists go to the wall]

Currently revising and rewriting a series of posts, and working towards consolidated, extended posts - more on this topic can be found in the post above.

By the way, if you still don't routinely read Greenslade's column, I urge you to do so - there is no greater way to gain a wide insight into all issues concerning the press (with wider media relevance too).

This column reacts to Michael Rosenblum's recent conference speech in which he argues that newspapers will end up stifles, citing the examples of Airbnb (hotels) and Uber (at a $30bn valuation, the world's biggest taxi form doesn't own any cabs!):

In the not too distant future, the world’s biggest and most powerful news and media company will not employ a single journalist.

Greendale argues he sidestepped the main issue:

We are, of course, headed in the direction indicated by Rosenblum. The question he does not ask, however, is whether it will be beneficial for journalism and, by extension, beneficial for the public. 

The supposed virtue of a journalism of the people by the people for the people is nothing more than a way of publishers maximising profit. Media companies are using the technology as a way of reducing labour costs rather than as a way of democratising, and thereby enhancing, editorial content. 

tbc

PRESS + DIGITISATION Thomas Jefferson quote

Great article on a photojournalist's chronicling of the stark decline of journalism as a profession; the focus is on the US (Philadelphia Enquirer) but there is sadly common ground with the UK. I also tackle the term 'disruption' later in this post, a useful one in the context of web 2.0, digitisation, UGC and suchlike...:

Steacy's artfully expressed study captures impact of digitisation

In the past decade, as a percentage, more print journalists have lost their jobs than workers in any other significant American industry. (That bad news is felt just as keenly in Britain where a third of editorial jobs in newspapers have been lost since 2001.)
...
The reasons for this decline are familiar – the abrupt shift from print to pixels, the exponential rise in alternative sources of information, changes in lifestyle and reading habits, and, above all, the disastrous collapse of the city paper’s lifeblood – classified advertising – with the emergence of websites such as Craigslist and Gumtree. The implications are less often noted.
Stephan Salisbury, a prize-winning culture writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer for the past 36 years, puts them like this: “Newspapers stitch people together, weaving community with threads of information, and literally standing physically on the street, reminding people where they are and what they need to know. What happens to a community when community no longer matters and when information is simply an opportunity for niche marketing and branding in virtual space? Who covers the mayor? City council? Executive agencies? Courts?… It is this unravelling of our civic fabric that is the most grievous result of the decline of our newspapers. And it is the ordinary people struggling in the city who have lost the most, knowing less and less about where they are – even as the amount of information bombarding them grows daily at an astounding rate.”

Here's the quote the post title refers to; one you could quote possibly memorise as a great way of developing the basic point that a 'free press' are the cornerstone of our democracy (or, at least, our democratic theory!) ...

DIGITISATION GLOBALISATION Is Guardian now an AMERICAN paper?

Unique charitable ownership (Scott Trust) guarantees a future?

[UPDATE: Points from new article on Guardian linking up with several other media brands to jointly sell online display advertising added below the line]

This has been coming for some time, and reflects the globalising impact of ongoing digitisation. As well as highlighting investment in video content, American offices and ad sales staff to sell US-targeted ads (I already frequently see US ads within the Android Guardian app!), and detailing the wider corporate strategy, the central role of the US audience is made abundantly clear. We have to ask several questions here:

• Can a US/world-facing paper be properly regulated by UK media regulators?
• Lets not forget that the Guardian continues to boycott IPSO (at the time of writing)
• Does a separate press regulator make sense when convergence is essentially making the Guardian into an online TV producer as well as written/photographic news provider? Furthermore...
• Okay, the Guardian at a mere £1bn net worth is not on the scale of Murdoch et al, but nonetheless it does own other media interests - why is there still so little focus on cross-media ownership?
• Is it feasible that under pressure to please its US (and other nationalities) readers the Guardian won't shift its editorial style or approach on the US? Where might this leave British readers/users?
• Given the near-absence of any 'left-wing' within mainstream US politics, could this signal a further threat to pluralism within the UK press market?
• There are more positive issues too - the Guardian has built up a considerable record in recent years of collaborating on major, expensive projects with French, German, American and other papers, and this could enhance the prospects for more of this. Globalisation meant that the UK government's rather clumsy attempts to silence the Snowden reportage (physically smashing a Guardian PC received widespread mockery and contempt) was doomed to failure.

Make particular note of the 2nd paragraph below [article in full]:

OfCom must consider Facebook?

Social media deserves its share of scrutiny http://gu.com/p/46dja

CENSORSHIP Should terror videos be banned?

This is a question which ultimately leaches into many areas of the debate around media regulation:

• does it matter if effects cannot be proven? The BBFC explicitly justify their work by arguing that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"
• given that publicity is what such terror organisations as Isis are seeking, should the media self-censor ...
• ... or be forced to censor the graphic videos that are causing worldwide headlines and making this organisation a global brand?
• Should OfCom have the power to block (or censure/fine) non-UK media that enable this content over here? Fox News (USA) has caused ripples by re-posting a full, unedited video of a murder ... and this link has been widely passed around and promoted by Isis supporters
• UK newspapers have embedded extreme
• Mrs Thatcher memorably used the phrase "oxygen of publicity" to describe what terrorists desired - her solution, when TV regulators (both the IBA, soon scrapped, and the BBC: Death on the Rock and Real Lives rows) refused to bow to enormous pressure (a typical moral panic whipped up by her press supporters), was to ban 'extremists' from being heard on TV/radio
• media resistance to this led to John Major quietly repealing the law ... will we see a similar approach in 2015 and beyond as clamour grows now for similar action to banish Islamic extermists from the 'airwaves'?

I'll post further links; for now: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/04/fox-news-shows-isis-video-jordan-pilot.

BBC DG invites flak by suggesting watershed outmoded

UPDATE, FEB 2015: STEPHEN FRY SWEARS DURING BAFTAS

The BBC stoutly defended Fry, and the principle of free speech, though said it 'noted' the concerns expressed for this post-watershed swearing. For some, the watershed isn't enough!
At one point, he told his audience it was “pissing down with stars”. He also introduced Tom Cruise as “Tom f**king Cruise” as he ambled on stage to present an award.
“We received complaints from viewers unhappy with some of Stephen Fry’s language while presenting the Baftas,” a statement on the BBC’s complaints website read.
Attitudes to strong language vary enormously and we considered very carefully how to reflect this.
“Stephen, whose irreverence and style is extremely well-known to viewers, has presented the Baftas for several years. Any strong language was used after the watershed, and there was a presentation announcement at the start of the programme warning viewers that the broadcast would contain language of this nature.
“We accept that some viewers disagreed with this approach, and this feedback has been noted.”

Before you ask, the Mail was a tad cross at all this, shockingly enough (whilst squeezing in a load of large celebrity pics).

Both the BBC's film ratings and the TV (and radio) watershed face a problem which can be summed up in that one familiar word: digitisation. If young kids can effortlessly access TV or films at any time with any rating, can we really maintain the pretence of control? As more of us timeshift instead of following schedules, the concept gets even weaker.

There are other arguments against a watershed: why should adults, not least those without children, be restricted in their viewing?

The BBC have addressed and acknowledged some of these points, arguing that they provide valuable information so that those parents who choose to can make informed choices - though cinemas don't have any legal wriggle room to let parents/children decide.

Cinemas themselves will surely join any calls for deregulating film controls - they face fierce, intensifying competition from TV and mobile platforms, with TV advantaged by the ease of getting around age restrictions.

Read this article for a debate on the watershed between editors of prominent magazines, Robin Parker (Broadcast) and Boyd Hilton (Heat). Perhaps ironically, given Heat isn't exactly reknowned for classy, child-friendly material (but does attract young readers), it's Hilton who takes the pro-watershed line.

Below the line: an overview of how the Mail, Indie and others reported this story.

Press-ad revenue-digitisation

The central role played by advertiser revenue in the nature and shape of our press is a key point to grasp - as C&S argue, the ad industry (and the corporate giants they represent) form an informal licensing system: without ad revenues a paper will be forced to close.

In the digital age every newspaper faces the issue of losing ad revenue as advertisers switch to online platforms such as Facebook and Google. Newspapers' own online revenues are a poor substitute for what they're losing: a report quoted below (highlighted) in Greenslade's column puts it starkly - for every £25 of print ad revenue lost by papers in 2012 £1 is gained on latest figures from their web publication.

• Tuesday 11 September 2012

• More digital advertising gloom - but we must try harder to see the light

  We are familiar with the contention that digital pennies cannot compensate for the loss of print pounds. In other words, online advertising revenue will never provide enough to fund traditional newspaper journalism.
  A new survey by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) has produced new evidence to illustrate that fact. It shows that the US industry suffered $798m (£500m) in print ad losses for the first half of 2012 compared to the same period a year ago.
  That was offset by a $32m (£20m) gain in digital. So the ratio of losses to gains was 25 to 1.
  Rick Edmonds, a writer for the Poynter Institute, sees this as "ominous" and believes it casts a cloud over hopes for journalism funded by digital advertising. Well, he doesn't quite say that merely observing that it "raise(s) the question again of whether the base is so small and progress so slow in dollars that digital first may fail to support much of a news operation."
  He has in mind US companies like Journal Register and Advance. The former is pursuing a digital first strategy but has just filed for bankruptcy (see Michael Wolff here and Jeff Jarvis here for very different views on that).
  Advance is restricting most of its daily papers to three days in newsprint as it seeks to rely eventually on digital advertising.
  But Edmonds quotes Jim Moroney, NAA chairman and publisher of the Dallas Morning News, as confirming the truth of the discouraging digital ad results.
  Faced with that reality, Moroney said most newspapers' strategies have shifted to a broader view of building replacement revenues, meaning the erection of paywalls.
  According to Edmonds, publishers are also "having some success with non-advertising initiatives like offering web design and social media services to businesses." Meanwhile, the biggest companies, such as Gannett and McClatchy, have taken profitable stakes in major classified platforms.
  He goes on to consider the specific problems of attracting digital ad revenue, including low rates - due to the array of choices for advertisers on the net - and the perceived ineffectiveness of banner ads.
  He cites recent studies by the Interactive Advertising Bureau which indicate that one third to a half of web display ads are not even seen because of their placement on a page or because users move off before they load.
  Then there is the competition from the big beasts - Google, Yahoo and Facebook - that continue to grow their advertising.
  So Edmonds believes that cash-strapped newspaper companies will continue to do what they've been doing for the last five years - cutting costs by reducing staffs.
  And he also shows that with fewer people buying papers, the roughly stable circulation revenues have been achieved by raising cover prices - a tactic that stimulates further desertion by readers.
  Cost-cutting and cover price hikes are being pursued here in Britain because the problems we face are similar to those in the United States. But this situation doesn't negate digital missionaries who are trying to build a future without print advertising revenue.
  Surely none of us thought that the disruption caused by the digital revolution was going to be easy. We have to think, to innovate and to experiment in order to discover the journalistic light at the end of the tunnel. To do otherwise is to give up hope altogether.
  Source: Poynter
  Post your comment

Prescott says Twitter stronger than PCC

The post title doesn't quite sum up former Labour deputy-PM John Prescott's argument, which is a very, very useful one as it

• brings up issues around digitisation ...
• and the decline of newspaper circulation (there are 10m UK Twitter accounts, while 9m papers are sold each day)
• the failures of the PCC, and how Twitter users are more effective than it: he compares his experience of complaining about a Photoshopped image used to brand him as a 'champagne socialist' (he was drinking a bottle of beer which was cropped out of the shot) - it took weeks to get an apology - with a June 2011 story in The Sunday Times about him criticising new Labour leader Miliband: he tweeted that this was simply a made-up lie, and within HOURS The Sunday Times issued an apology
• the failure of the press to carry out its democratic function as a 'fourth estate'
• ...not least over the refusal of the press to report the Guardian's revelations about phone hacking until after the Milly Dowler revelations led to the closure of the NoTW - he says it was the incessant discussion of this on Twitter that ensured the Guardian's reporting eventually had an impact
• he also notes the role of advertisers: it was after a growing number of big-name companies announced they would cease advertising in the NoTW that it was closed
• fundamentally, he argues that Twitter enables the people to carry out the scrutinising role, holding politicians to account, that the press/media are traditonally meant to

Here's what he said on http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/15/life-is-tweet-john-prescott:

Life is tweet, says John Prescott, as Twitter reaches 10m milestone in UK

Twitter has helped shift the balance of media power from press barons to the people – a true champagne moment

• 
• • John Prescott
  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 May 2012
  • Comments (97)

John Prescott says the 10,000,000th UK Twitter subscriber is a milestone and a true champagne moment. Photograph: Andrew Winning/Reuters

Tuesday marked a turning point for the UK mainstream media. The combined total of people who buy daily national newspapers is 9,002,963. The number of people on Twitter in the UK is now 10 million.
Where once press barons were courted by politicians and PRs, the people have now established their own media. It costs nothing, is faster than mainstream media and galvanises people into action.
Back in 1996, I went to a do with Pauline. A photographer took a picture of us at our table. The following day the London Evening Standard ran a picture with the caption "champagne socialist".
There was no bottle of champagne at our table – the paper had cropped the picture to make a bottle of Becks look like a bottle of Moët. Another beer near my hand was airbrushed out completely.
I complained but, after a few days, I'd heard nothing. So I released a statement which was published in the Independent and, eventually after weeks, I received an apology from the Standard.
In June 2011, the Sunday Times wrongly reported I had told "friends" that my party's new leader had not made "a good start" to his leadership. The headline read "Labour Big Beasts Maul Ed Miliband".
I tweeted: "I see there's a quote purporting to be from me in the Sunday Times. It's completely made up. An absolute lie."
Within an hour, the paper replied "Due to a prod[uction] error a quote was wrongly attributed to @johnprescott. We apologise for the confusion & are happy to set the record straight."
Both stories illustrate how power in the media has shifted dramatically. Twitter has created an important and speedy check on our newspapers – a role the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) failed miserably to fulfil – and finally made press barons accountable to the people.
Even Rupert Murdoch, who vented his spleen in Sun editorials, realised the power shift and cut out the middleman by finally joining Twitter in January.

The Jan Moir Twitter storm about her terrible Daily Mail piece on Stephen Gately's "sleazy" death led to thousands of tweeters, myself included, posting the link to officially complain to the PCC. A record 25,000 did and Moir was forced to apologise.

Twitter users also bombarded News of the World's advertisers after accusations it had hacked Milly Dowler's phone. O2, Boots, Halifax, Dixons, Sainsbury's, the Co-op, npower and Ford all withdrew their advertising and the paper was closed within a week.

Social media also helped set up the Leveson inquiry. While very few media outlets covered the Guardian's original phone-hacking investigations in 2009 in any detail, it was kept alive on Twitter as new information emerged.

They wouldn't let it lie and the mainstream media were ultimately compelled to investigate the story, leading to a critical mass of public anger and official action.

Twitter is OUR media, the public have become the news editors and the Twitter trend list is the running order.

It's given me a voice and a connection to millions of people that the distorted prism of the mainstream media denied.
So for me, life is tweet. Though it would be even tweeter if they verified me.
LOL!
• John Prescott is the former deputy prime minister. He joined Twitter on 22 January 2009 and presently has almost 132,000 followers.

Convergence + digitisation

I've copied this across from the BritCinema blog...

def. of convergence: the concept of the distinctions between once distinct media platforms/institutions collapsing under the influence of new media and the ongoing processes of digitisation. For example, a typical newspaper (print) now offers web content, including podcasts (radio?), video (TV?), blogs etc

To further explore and explain this several additional terms are used; note all opportunities to utilise terminology for your exam! 'Digitisation' is explored below.

Thats how I'd define 'convergence', an especially important concept for Media Studies and your AS exam, as so many consequences flow from this both in terms of how audiences access and consume/interact with the media and the institutions that produce, distribute and market media products.
(The exam board pick out 4 areas you need to be able to discuss with reference to your case studies - WT v Warp, + a brief comparison of both to the big 6 blockbuster Avatar - production, distribution, marketing + 'exchange' [the point at which an audience buys/consumes, perhaps co-creates, a text])

FURTHER DEFINITIONS + RESOURCES ON CONVERGENCE
Here's a vid which further explores the idea

It is a concept which has been discussed for some years now, with its consequences and whether its an entirely good thing seen as up for debate:

Perhaps we will reach a point of consolidation when the pace of technological change slows and the audience catches up, but at the moment most companies with both offline and online enterprises still see the vast majority of their revenues and costs lying with their traditional, offline businesses. Yet they are increasingly aware that this will tip in the opposite direction in the middle distance. So how should the transfer be managed?
... What we will see from media companies are assumptions about the dominant medium, be it print or TV, transferred to the newly converged online world without adequate recognition that the two are completely different entities. (Emily Bell: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/jul/15/comment.media)

Our exam board, in an annual report on the AS Media exam, note that many students weren't really clear on this concept (http://www.ocr.org.uk/download/rep_09/ocr_35219_rep_09_gce_jun.pdf), which is a central one when considering Britsih Cinema in the context of Instiutions and Audiences.
Here's another, more detailed definition then:

media convergence,  phenomenon involving the interlocking of computing and information technology companies, telecommunications networks, and content providers from the publishing worlds of newspapers, magazines, music, radio, television, films, and entertainment software. Media convergence brings together the “three Cs”—computing, communications, and content.

Convergence has occurred at two primary levels:

1. Technologies—creative content has been converted into industry-standard digital forms for delivery through broadband or wireless networks for display on various computer or computer-like devices, from cellular telephones to personal digital assistants (PDAs) to digital video recorders (DVRs) hooked up to televisions.
2. Industries—companies across the business spectrum from media to telecommunications to technology have merged or formed strategic alliances in order to develop new business models that can profit from the growing consumer expectation for “on-demand” content.

Some industry analysts see media convergence as marking the twilight of the “old media” of print and broadcasting and the rise of “new media” associated with digital publishing. Among the major changes associated with digital publishing is the growth of a “flatter” publishing structure that allows one-to-one and many-to-many distributions of content. [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1425043/media-convergence]

A Media academic, Juha Herkman, explores convergence in a fairly challenging article, noting for example:

Another much discussed, but not so much researched area, has been the impact of convergence on media economics: merger of companies, concentration of ownership and converging markets of communication technology and media content. [http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/changing.media/YS%20London/media_convergence-Juha.htm]

We will take this point up later, looking at the example of Avatar. A key point here will be the advantages the major players receive from synergies:

In addition to convergence at the distribution level there are areas in which the same content can be re-packaged across media: for example, computer games and films use the same content in different ways. This also creates powerful marketing synergies.[http://moneyterms.co.uk/media-convergence/]

The wiki on convergence is also quite useful; this is an excerpt, there is much more content on the page:

Technological convergence is the tendency for different technological systems to evolve towards performing similar tasks.

Convergence can refer to previously separate technologies such as voice (and telephony features), data (and productivity applications), and video that now share resources and interact with each other, synergistically creating new efficiencies.

Today, we are surrounded by a multi-level convergent media world where all modes of communication and information are continually reforming to adapt to the enduring demands of technologies, "changing the way we create, consume, learn and interact with each other".^[1]

Convergence in this instance is defined as the interlinking of computing and other information technologies, media content, and communication networks that have arisen as the result of the evolution and popularization of the Internet as well as the activities, products and services that have emerged in the digital media space.

Many experts view this as simply being the tip of the iceberg, as all facets of institutional activity and social life such as business, government, art, journalism, health, and education are increasingly being carried out in these digital media spaces across a growing network of information and communication technology devices. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_convergence]

 Over at another school's Media blog, an excellent resource for you to use as you work towards the exam (they also study British Cinema), as well as the vid included earlier we get this point, which stresses (note the terminology...) the proliferation of delivery platforms; places, technologies where we can consume or access film ... which these days extends to making our own (UGC), including fan videos (see vid below).

Technological Convergence and Exibition

In the film industry the number of platforms where you can view films is proliferating all the time; audiences can also watch films in a variety of ways WHEN THEY WANT TO. You can use digital technology to download a film or TV programme onto your mobile phone, laptop, I-Pad or PC; you can watch it on your flat-screen TV; you can also connect your  HD TV to the Internet and watch the film on You Tube; of course, you can see the film on Blue Ray or ordinary DVDs;  some might prefer to watch the film on Playstation or X Box; you could, perhaps, download it on Pirate Bay or other sites and consume it at a time that suits you. Of course the latter is illegal. But is this not how many students get their music these days? How do you think institutions will use technological convergence to reduce the impact of piracy? [http://asanda2mediastudies.blogspot.com/2011/01/technological-convergence-explained.html]

Here's an example of a fan vid, a new aspect of how some of us interact with film (part of the 'exchange' the exam board refer to for your exam; we'll more usually refer to 'consumption')

 


LIFE, THE WORLD and THE UNIVERSE BEFORE CONVERGENCE
For this to fully make sense we have to consider how the media has changed since you were born! The web began becoming a 'mass' media (used/accessed by a large proportion of the audience) from the mid-90s, though didn't really reach a tipping point when most people used it until the mid-noughties.

The penetration of the web into everyday usage, to the point where many people access most of their music, newspapers and even TV + film through it (including on mobiles, iPads etc) is actually just one example of the ongoing transformative effects of digitisation. Life was simpler in the mid-90s: newspapers were straighforwardly newspapers, radio came through radio sets, TV through television sets, and so on. Print, film and the broadcast media are referred to as 'old media', the binary opposite of 'new media' (principally the web). The traditional media were analogue; not interactive. If you bought a paper the only way to interact was to write in, giving rise to the phrase 'outraged from Tunbridge Wells'. Analogue and digital also form a binary opposition.

Interactivity isn't the only feature of digitisation, the rendering of media content into computerised code of 1s and 0s. Copying analogue media required equipment to copy one particular analogue media: the photcopier or printing press; cassette recorder (back in the 80s I like many recorded music from radio shows by holding a tape recorder to the speaker of a radio set!); VHS video recorder (or two linked together, as seen in Son of Rambow). As you may have picked up from the National Media Museum display, many early computer games came on cassette tapes too!

Pre-digitisation, copying audio-visual media was not straightforward, and each copy suffered a loss of quality (so a copy of a copy would be much lower quality than the original). Your teacher remembers well giving up trying to watch a copy of The Exorcist which was so degraded it was like having a snowstorm between you and the TV screen!
For your exam, you need to consider what this process of convergence, and the associated concept of digitisation, means not just for the film industry, not just the audience(s) they tap into, but also YOU specifically and how this has impacted on YOUR interaction with the film industry.

KEY CONSEQUENCES OF DIGITISATION:

more portable (mobile) media
interactivity: rise of UGC and social media
new source of profits: DVD (+ special editions) & now Blu-Ray (more new formats WILL follow) to replace old VHS copies (tip: long tail theory), BUT...
vastly increased piracy; rise of BitTorrent and other illegal download sites (filesharing) - once rendered into binary code, films are easy to 'rip', copy and re-distribute, circumventing cinema/TV/retailers
greater opportunity for low-budget/Indie filmmakers to compete with conglomerates? Digital filmmaking greatly reduces cost of production, and theoretically reduces to near-zero the cost of distribution (post a hard drive to cinemas; make avaiulable for download or streaming) [consider Warp X; Atonement; Coens' latest; Colin]

KEY CONSEQUENCES OF CONVERGENCE?

vastly enhanced opportunities to market (eg viral marketing) + new modes of distribution
arguably increasing advantage of conglomerates, eg the big 6, through the synergies available

Future of newspapers

See http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/jun/21/middletown-press-thunderdome for an example of how a US paper is embracing digitisation