Factual Story Telling Assessment

Project Faith in Action.

Public Media. Lecture 7.

Ahh Public Media. Something I can be more fond of rather than its opposite, Commercial media. The Public Media can be dramatically described as the media for the people. Rather than relying on the money value the public media is clearly used to serve citizens. It can be noted however that Public Media can also be for profit as long as its main objective is to serve the public and not the profit. Within Australia the avenues that we can access the Public Media is predominantly through the SBS and the ABC.

In the lecture it was shown that the Public media should have 'Public Value'. That 'Public Value' has been described by the BBC as:

• Embedding a 'public service ethos'
• Value for license fee money
• Weighing public Value against market impact
• Public consultation

The prime functions of the Public Media include

• Nation Building
• National Heritage
• National Identity 
• National Conversations

For me the Public Media that is predominately accessed is the News. This is also one of the key mechanisms for the Public Media. The only time I ever watch television I always have it switched to the ABC and am either watching Q&A or ABC worldwide. In the lecture interesting facts were shown that came as a surprise the two that stood out were:

1. 41% of Australians get their news format he ABC
2. Each week 12.6 million Australians watch ABC TV

This brings a warmth to my soul knowing that we are not all about the trash and some of us Australians are getting a decent education even if it just through the News. 

The Public Media do however face challenges and these challenges included:

• To produce quality
• To make themselves relevant
• To engage with the democratic process
• To inform the public
• To be independent

The realisation of how big of a job the Public Media have for themselves in ensuring this To-Do list gets done makes me want to tip my hat to them even more. 

Commercial Schmercial. Lecture 6.

Commerical media has a wide range of avenues, free-to-air tv, paid tv, newspapers, radio stations and magazines. This type of media is essentially profit driven. It is not government funded or license funded. The profit stream comes from the use of advertising and using the audiences gained to respond to advertisement used. The greater the audience the greater exposure of advertisements.

Within Australia there is many actors within commercial media these include:

• Nine Entertainment Co. 
• News Limited
• Fairfax Media
• APN News & Media
• WIN corporation
• Southern Cross Broadcasting
• Seven West Media
• Ten

Alike many of my peers the surprise revelation of companies owning what we the public see as competing media. For example, News Limited - The Australian and The Courier Mail. This aligns nicely to the conclusion that Commerical Media is essentially just for the MONEY. 

A question was posed during the lecture asking, "Can commercial media deliver on both commercial (profit) and social (public trust) functions? (or is it really just about the almighty $ dollar?)". My answer to this question would be a straight No and Yes, it is all about the almighty dollar. An example of this came about not that too long ago. I was sitting at home surprisingly watching the television (that is rare for me) and for about 5 whole seconds a breaking news reel came across the screen stating "Breaking News: 8.7 earthquake off Indonesia. Tsunami Warning". I have never shared my story but my parents are missionaries and my Mother could possibly be in Indonesia (I didn't know which one at the time since I had not heard from her in a week and she moves too fast for me to catch up). For me this message is alarming, I expected the next advertising break to at least have a news update on exactly what had happened considering there was a 'Breaking News' reel shown. This did not happen. The advertisements started and all it showed were those annoying back to back insurance advertisements. I remember thinking right at that moment "Damn you, Commerical Media!". 

Now the quote by John McManus from the lecture springs to mind, 'Commercial = corrupt; lack of quality; profit over-rides social responsibility'. I highly agree with this quote and am disappointed that this is the reality of commercial media. 

PICTURES and STORIES. Picture Stories! Lecture 4.

PICTURE STORIES is definitely my kind of story. Or rather my kind of lecture. By now I am sure you have a gathered I love visuals. Old or new a photo or a drawing sparks joy within my soul if I am able to relate or be moved. 

Dr. Redman showed us what I assume is his favourite youtube clip of the Dove transformation advert

Before this lecture I had never actually seen this before and I found it quite cool. Growing up around this kind of 'picture' journalism I have never been oblivious to the fact that this activity happens. At the moment I am reading Tina Fey's very funny book, Bossypants. In the book she talks about photoshop being used on her photos and takes a different argument on the subject. Unlike most arguments that fight for the right of self-esteem and natural beauty if you will, Tina Fey tells it straight in her book stating "Give it up. Retouching is here to stay. Technology doesn't move backwards". She also argues, "At least with photoshop you don't really have to alter your body. It's better than all these disgusting injectables and implants". I for one agree with Tina and not just because she is awesome. A lot of people do it at home on their own pictures for Facebook or twitter anyway. Natural beauty is great but people always want something they can't have at least not without surgery therefore Photoshop is the easy way out.

The Jonathon Thurston case study was an interesting hands way to show at how different pictures depict the same story in very different views. I was very interested in other peoples picks of which photo made it as everyone thinks differently. Also learning that the photo used was taken on an iPhone is great and shows that everyone is able to take a great photo without having to be 'professional'. This adds confidence to knowing 'I am a Journalist'.

Text and Journalism...who knew? Lecture 3

To be honest I was a little late to this lecture as my European Political Issues lecturer went way over the time limit. I was also confused as to why there was a woman talking as I did not know there was going to be a guest speaker. This speaker was, Skye Doherty. I did make it for the end of the slide on the inverted pyramid. I love that little guy, I remember back in the day in English at High School he was my best friend. I used it for so many different assessments and also in Legal Studies. I was very surprised to hear from people around me that this is the first time they have ever encountered the Inverted Pyramid.

The one thing I drew from this lecture is the 'Poynter Eyetrack' slide. Being a very visual person especially when it comes to pictures rather than text I found it quite surprising that pictures are not the entry point to the homepage. I tested this on myself and a few others in my family and I came to the conclusion that without viewing the text first, the pictures on the page become more or less of a 'nothing' to you. Either that or the pictures loaded after the text popped up first inevitably making it the first thing you are drawn to.

The keywords as text also struck a chord within. I had never processed the fact that keywords and metadata  would play a huge part in online newspapers. Keywords for any type of journalism on the internet would be an extremely important factor in order to gain audiences and traffic. Revelation!