'We Media' and Democracy: Assessment 1 - Alex Hunter

Reflecting on your research from the summer: what have you learned about your own media use and how you access news content?



Over the summer, to prepare for our work in A2 media, we were given a booklet on we-media and democracy within media. We were advised to download the BBC News app in order to keep ourselves updated on events taking place. Furthermore, having this app allowed me to pick and choose the news that I wanted to hear. This was in order to start making us think about where we digested our news sources from; are they honest and do we discover the same news as others?



Before I delved deep into paying attention to the news, I would receive news from three places; whatever I saw on Facebook, Bing articles that always pop up on my laptop home screen and from what my parents found find out from watching Sky News. Ninety-five percent of the time I would never bother reading past the headline if it were something I would have found myself. This is because honestly I’m not the type of person who follows the news and knows everything that is happening in the world. I don’t care. It’s boring. Therefore it is clearly obvious that my access to news content is low because I do not wish to access it. This also raises the point that, now I am having to pay more attention to the news, how do I know for sure that what I am seeing is accurate? It’s easy to tell that when you scroll past a link to a crazy-topic news story on Facebook that an individual has shared is most likely fake. However, it becomes hard to tell when the professional ‘big media’ companies like Sky don’t get it right, because you trust them, it’s their job to present the news. Although, this is not entirely true.



From our preparation work I’ve learnt that seen as the BBC is fund by the taxpayer, it is most likely the only big media company that presents both sides of the story. For example, as the BBC news is ultimately funded by everyone, both left and right political views are too presented equally without being biased to one another. Generally, the level of journalism of the BBC news in the UK is known to be high standard, thus presenting trustworthy content. Whereas other big media companies are held in very few hands. Take Sky and FOX for example that branch off into smaller production companies that feeds the populous news is all supplied by Robert Murdoch. One man. This doesn’t at all seem fair or representational as Murdoch noticeably takes no effort in hiding his biased viewpoints, such as his views on privatising the NHS.



Anyway, as I was saying, Bing was also a source that I would retrieve my news from. Before we had to look into new story in order to prepare for A2, I would always pay no attention to these pop up articles that would be displayed ion my laptop as, like I’ve said, I didn’t care. However, now I’m beginning to pay attention to these I’ve begin to notice the content that pops up. Firstly, the content is being constantly updated. As I’m typing this I’ve noticed that recently an article about Mary leaving the Great British Bake Off has been added. Being constantly updated shows a real shift in how media has evolved throughout the years. For example, before the internet (or media 2.0) you wouldn’t know today’s events until you saw tomorrow’s newspaper. Secondly, some of the content seems made accustom to my interests, meaning that cookies are being used to track what I like and am interested in. For example, a couple of articles that popped up were focusing on news around the Xbox One and Play Station 4, not major news you’d expect on the 10 o’clock news. This therefore brings to light reasons why the news I receive is not one hundred percent the same as the next time. I have a choice in what I want to see. Thirdly, my parents are also a facto where I receive bits of news. They get their information from TV news programmes like Sky news and BBC as well as the Mail Online. However, I believe this information to be less evaluated as imagine that they passive accept what they see as they are not thinking about where their information is coming from.



The first news story I discovered was headlined; 'Unemployed migrant couple, Arnold Mballe Sube and his wife Jeanne, turn down five bed council house as they need six'. I discovered this when the headline, and a picture to accompany it, popped up once I opened up a new tab on my laptop. I decided to click the story in order to read more in depth, past the headline. This wasn't because I was curious, as I usually pay no attention to these, but because I remembered about this task. The story was on the Mail Online, a big media company. Reading into this story made me realise how manipulative headlines can be in making you think a certain way towards. A few details were missed out in the headline but honestly after reading the story I felt the same way as I did when I saw the headline; I’m glad they turned down the house so taxpayers can live in it. When it comes to how trustworthy I believe the story was I’d say I trust the source to be accurate as the Mail Online is a big media company who you’d expect provide strong research through expert journalism as it easy to see that no citizen journalism was involved. Citizen journalism refers to when news content is provided by regular people, the eyewitnesses to a news story.



The second news story I stumbled upon was again on the Mail Online, however I only decided to read the headline. The news story was about the recent break up between Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston and the article consisted of pictures of Tom’s ‘recovery’. As much as I adore the actor I couldn’t care less about this story because, firstly, it’s not interesting and, secondly, there is definitely no real evidence to support the fact that Tom is feeling down about his and Taylor’s recent split. Their relationship was supposedly not even real anyway, which brings me to this. Although this news story was provided by the Mail Online, which I said I believed to be a trustworthy source, I do not trust this information as there is a lack of content. These mere images do not back up what the story suggests. How do we know that Tom is feeling fine? They didn’t ask him. Therefore, I believe that this was intended to generate lies and hype in order for the Mail Online to retrieve viewers through click bait.  The first and second stories ultimately hint at big media sitting on the fence when it comes to providing accurate, trustworthy information.



The other stories I found throughout the summer varied from things I scrolled past on Facebook and from websites that I had purposely googled, like The Independent, in order to see if big media companies differed in the content they provided. As expected, the links on Facebook didn’t scream trustworthy due to the fact that they appeared on social media, whereas content I found on Bing articles popping up and official websites such as the Daily Mail appeared to be a little more trustworthy; some stories more than others.



In conclusion, reviewing news content I have discovered has made me realise the extent of news that I actually come by whether it be through social media like Facebook, Snapchat or things that are being talked about on YouTube. Or I could accidentally hear things from my parents when they are watching the news in the background. In addition, I have begun to question what is trustworthy. For example, knowing that, as theorist Owen Jones states, more than half media professionals were privately educated, therefore clearly suggesting that a representation is not built. In summary, I know feel more aware towards where my news content is coming from.