News case study for online and digital

This section on the Impact of New/Digital Technology aims to provide you with an example of a case study. In addition, the information will again help you with your responses on possible questions that might come up in Section A, Question 3, and it is therefore important to have a general overview, and a detailed understanding of how New/Digital Technology impacts and ‘why’. You will be expected to create your own case study for this Unit of Study, and it is important that you read broadly and widely to ensure that you are covering all bases. As said in the above, you need to present a wide range of up –to-date information, and demonstrate a detailed knowledge and understanding of the topic. Your response also needs to reflect ‘critical autonomy’, which means that you need to show that you are an independent learner. You need to show that you can research widely and form your own opinions regarding the subject matter you are looking at. This case study will focus on the Impact of New/ Digital Technology and the News. In the final stages of this piece we shall also look at an exemplar essay, and evaluate what you need to include in your exam responses.

Introduction

Above: Richard Baker (1954) delivering the first BBC news broadcast. The first British Radio News broadcast was delivered by the BBC in 1922. (BBC.co.uk, 2013) (For your own personal reading and for more detail on the BBC, please follow the link and look at the BBC Time Line:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc//, 2013 and
http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0151956.html, 2013)

The first BBC news broadcast was delivered in 1954. It was a 20 minute broadcast, and was introduced as an ‘illustrated summary of the news’. (news.bbc.co.uk, 2013) The bulletin was heavily constructed, and the news items were often several days old. This is obviously a far cry from the news audiences now experience and the news cycle’s speed had to adapt to the modern audience’s vast paced lives and demands. (The adaptation of the news cycle to match everyday lives is called the Feiler Faster Thesis and this theory was first referred to in March 2000.) The news is now also delivered in real time, it is of course, as with all media items, quite heavily constructed, but there is a sense of immediacy and immediate relevance to it. You can read more about the BBC News by following the link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/aboutbbcnews/ (2013) The first radio broadcast in the USA was delivered on 31st August 1920, by The Detroit News. (wired.com 2013) However, in the United States the News Broadcast entered American homes more regularly in the 1940s, but America’s first TV station went live in 1928. (wired.com, 2013) In February 1948, the NBC Television Newsreel was launched, which was simply a film with voiceover and narration. News items were between 10 – 15 minutes long. In the mid- 1950s weekly news shows by Edward R. Murrow was seen as the most important and influential work done regarding news broadcasts. The 1955 show See It Now had live reports from journalists on the East and West Coast of the USA. The programme focused on controversial issues, and the one that it will be remembered for most is A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy. This report in the end contributed to the eventual downfall of the senator. (http://www.museum.tv, 2013) There was soon a need for News Broadcasts to become longer and more detailed. It moved from a 10 – 15 minute programme to a 30 minute slot, which allowed for more detailed reporting on news items and a wider range of items to be covered. These changes were seen in the late 1950s and 1960s. The shape of the news started to change too, as mentioned in the above section looking at See it Now, programmes could be anchored by a news anchor, and live transmissions could be made from various parts of the country. (http://www.museum.tv, 2013) In 1953 ABC Evening News started to air and in 1978 the ABC Evening News was succeeded by ABC World News Tonight. There was a clear shift from just reporting locally or within one country to a more global approach, with 3 news anchors and reporters reporting back to the studio on a range of event. It is clear from looking at the history of the news room that it has seen many changes in its approach, and above all, it has seen many changes in the approaches to the news. (nyu.edu, 2013) What is interesting to look at is the way in which reporting is tackled. At first we can see it was heavily constructed, and a restricted process due to the limitations technology presents. Information had to be filmed, and brought back to the studio for editing and vetting. However, as the technological methods of filming and broadcasting evolved, the more natural the news room could present and deliver the news as it happens. It is interesting to know that if news is fed live to for example the Sky Studios, it takes 2 seconds for the normal transmission to reach our screens and 3 seconds if you are watching in high definition. (Sky.com, 2013) This is a clear example of how fast the news cycle is becoming, and that news is delivered in almost real time. However, in the studio, the shape of the news is very different too. The studio is used as an anchor base to which the all the news reporters / journalists feed the information and reports back to. The News Anchors read some of the news, but also act as facilitators and ‘interpreters’ of the events as it unfolds. We therefore now have some scripted elements and the rest comprises of a blend of live and edited reports. A range of platforms and mediums are also used to engage the news audience. However, the first step towards what we now know as 24 Hour News was the development of satellite links. This development opened up a range of possibilities for the news room to report more accurately and in real time to its audiences.

For Celine

FAO CELINE read it all very good!!!!!!

Hi Celine

To what extent have the strong female leads in the film industry...


Lots of very strong, admirable women in film from the past:
The Thin Man - woman and man team 1934 Myrna Loy was equal and extremely clever
Katharine Hepburn - African Queen good example always very strong and in control
Bette Davis - powerful role model


Older role models excellent actresses - Meryl Streep, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren , Glenn Close, Sigourney Weaver - all very strong of a similar generation but older and these types don't seem to be around anymore.


Jodie Foster, Julianne Moore, Annette Bening, Catherine Zeta Jones(middle aged) Angelina Jolie, Emma Stone,  (have recently had strong roles ) some with a catch - violence, men, sexuality, set in the past etc

Rachel McAdams in Morning Glory is worth a watch. (strong with no catch)

Talking about Jolie in Haywire - “Don’t think of her as being a woman,” advises Ewan McGregor, who registers strongly as a slippery agent. “That would be a mistake.”

This is from an Empire review of Haywire (action film with a ridiculously strong female lead)

"So, the story goes that Steven Soderbergh hit on the idea for Haywire while he was loafing in front of some Saturday night telly. Starting up on CBS was a female-only ultimate fighting gala. Up stepped the formidable Gina Carano. It was, for Soderbergh, love at first strike, but the question he asked was this: “How come Angelina Jolie’s the only woman allowed to run around with a gun and beat people up?” Haywire is his answer, and Jolie better renew her gym membership."

 

 

Recent strong women with a catch:

Angelina Jolie - Changeling 2008 - set in past

Merida in Brave - strong and fiery but was later given the Princess treatment

Hairspray and Sally Hawkins in Made in Dagenham - 60s

Bridesmaids vs Hangover? - women look more foolish and man hungry in the Hangover the men are cool

 

Here are some great facts!!!

http://www.nywift.org/documents/2011_ItsAMansWorld_ExecSumm.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/movies/13dargis.html?_r=3&ref=movies&

How many of the top roles are from recent times???? Hardly any!

http://films101.com/yl5r.htm

The Bechdel test Mr Amato was talking about

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/TheBechdelTest?from=Main.TheBechdelTest

Can women be strong without having to need a man, be a lesbian, or murder?

http://criticalmediareview.wordpress.com/2013/09/08/where-are-the-women/

http://msmagazine.com/blog/2013/08/19/gender-flipping-in-hollywood./ excellent article!!!!

Here are some great facts!!!

http://www.nywift.org/documents/2011_ItsAMansWorld_ExecSumm.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/movies/13dargis.html?_r=3&ref=movies&

How many of the top roles are from recent times???? Hardly any!

http://films101.com/yl5r.htm

The Bechdel test Mr Amato was talking about

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/TheBechdelTest?from=Main.TheBechdelTest

Can women be strong without having to need a man, be a lesbian,or murderer?

http://criticalmediareview.wordpress.com/2013/09/08/where-are-the-women/

http://msmagazine.com/blog/2013/08/19/gender-flipping-in-hollywood./ excellent article!!!!

 

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/08/i-hate-strong-female-characters

 

Women & film

By Ann Hornaday,October 25, 2009

    

To earn her two Oscars, Hilary Swank went mano a mano with Clint Eastwood in a boxing ring and sucked face with Chloë Sevigny. But her toughest test yet might be this weekend, when box office numbers for "Amelia" come in. The historical drama, about the pioneering aviatrix Amelia Earhart, represents a major risk in Hollywood, where studio executives have been increasingly chary of making movies about strong women. If "Amelia" earns respectable receipts, chances are it will be dismissed as a lucky break. If it fails, it will be cited as yet more proof that strong female protagonists are box office poison.

Reached by telephone last week, Swank -- who also executive produced "Amelia" -- was optimistic. "I think things ebb and flow, and someone out there who crunches numbers probably affects that," she said regarding studios' reluctance to make films about strong women ("Amelia" was produced and distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures, a subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox). "Then I think art has to override it, and the numbers people say, 'Oh right, that works.' It comes in and out."

Strong women, for now anyway, are out. Two years ago, when the Jodie Foster vigilante thriller "The Brave One" failed at the box office, industry blogger Nikki Finke reported that a Warner Brothers production executive announced to staffers that the studio would no longer produce movies featuring female leads. This past summer, actress and writer Nia Vardalos blogged on the Huffington Post that when she was pitching a project to a studio executive, he asked that she change the female lead to a man. Why? Because "women don't go to movies," he told her. "When I pointed out the box office successes of 'Sex and The City,' 'Mamma Mia!,' and 'Obsessed,' he called them 'flukes,' " she wrote.

On paper, at least, "Amelia" should be a surefire hit. The high-gloss portrait of 1930s pilot Earhart recalls such audience favorites as "Out of Africa" and "The English Patient" in its sense of epic romance and period glamour. Swank gets to flirt with two dashing leading men, Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor. And she plays an enduringly fascinating icon, a free spirit who vanished mysteriously in 1937, leaving behind a tantalizing myth that combined speed, adventure, proto-feminist brio and American optimism.

The only problem? No Manolo Blahniks! No Abba! No vampires!

Consider: It's been nine years since Julia Roberts starred in "Erin Brockovich," about a nervy legal assistant who wound up taking on corporate America. Nine years before that, Jodie Foster starred in "The Silence of the Lambs," in which she played a quietly courageous FBI agent. Of the top 10 movies of 2009 so far, only one features a woman in a leading role: the romantic comedy "The Proposal," starring Sandra Bullock. "Julie & Julia," which is close to breaking the $100 million barrier, is the only hit film that features a "serious" female protagonist -- Julia Child, played by Meryl Streep.

In an era when women in movies fall along a spectrum defined by Hannah Montana and "Twilight" on one end and "Sex and the City" and "Mamma Mia!" on the other, where are the screen heroines of yesteryear, who could be strong, serious and sexy?

"Dramas are dead," says producer Lynda Obst ("Contact," "The Invention of Lying"). "Some of the greatest parts for women -- the Academy Award parts for women -- are often in dramas, and this is the worst time for dramas since I've been in the business for the last 10,000 years." More than ever, Obst adds, the movie business is geared toward the young men who go to movies most frequently. "And by and large that's a comedy audience and an action audience. To get a project greenlit now, studios are requiring more and more what we call 'unaided awareness,' which is where you get this addiction to toys and comics and old titles. And dramas don't live there."

To understand the situation of women in Hollywood right now, one need look no further than Drew Barrymore, whose career over the past year perfectly crystallizes the good-news/bad-news dichotomy. The ensemble romantic comedy she produced and starred in, "He's Just Not That Into You," was a hit. "Whip It," the girl-centric action comedy that marked her feature directorial debut, was not -- even though it put Barrymore in the company of a remarkable crop of female directors with movies out this year: Kathryn Bigelow, Jane Campion, Nora Ephron, Karyn Kusama, Lynn Shelton and Lone Scherfig (whose effervescent coming-of-age film, "An Education," opens Friday), to name just a few.

But Barrymore also delivered a stunning dramatic screen performance in 2009. Not in a major motion picture, but on HBO, in "Grey Gardens" opposite Jessica Lange. "Dramas are still alive in television," says Obst, "which is why we see some of our greatest actresses emigrating to TV, everyone from Mary-Louise Parker to Glenn Close to Holly Hunter."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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