The Future of Journalism: 

Part 1: Clay Shirky lecture

1) Why does Clay Shirky argue that 'accountability journalism' is so important and what example does he give of this?

He gives the example of the catholic priests molesting children and keeping the scandal undercover due to their power.

2) What does Shirky say about the relationship between newspapers and advertisers? Which websites does he mention as having replaced major revenue-generators for newspapers (e.g. jobs, personal ads etc.)?

He says that there is a bad relationship between newspapers and ad companies as they were overcharged by print newspaper companies.

3) Shirky talks about the 'unbundling of content'. This means people are reading newspapers in a different way. How does he suggest audiences are consuming news stories in the digital age?

Social media and articles that use clickbait.

4) Shirky also talks about the power of shareable media. How does he suggest the child abuse scandal with the Catholic Church may have been different if the internet had been widespread in 1992?

People would have been able to investigate this further- there would have been access that the public/journalists were entitled to research and it would have spread much faster.

5) Why does Shirky argue against paywalls? 

It is a way for businesses to make money while people are entitled to know the news for free.

6) What is a 'social good'? In what way might journalism be a 'social good'?

It reveals truth to people and ensures that there is minimal corruption in the higher powers.

7) Shirky says newspapers are in terminal decline. How does he suggest we can replace the important role in society newspapers play? What is the short-term danger to this solution that he describes?

Shirky says nothing can replace newspapers, and that if newspapers die out corruption will be easily obtained and even easier to get away with. 

8) Look at the first question and answer regarding institutional power. Give us your own opinion: how important is it that major media brands such as the New York Times or the Guardian continue to stay in business and provide news?

People take those articles to refer to while spreading news so i think that they are vital- otherwise we have no trustworthy source of news.

Part 2: MM55 - Media, Publics, Protest and Power

1) What are the three overlapping fields that have an influence on the relationship between media and democracy?

• The political field intervenes when the state powerfully limits or enables the diversity of voices and views in the press, through its power to regulate, deregulate or subsidise the media.

•  The economic field refers to commercial influences that encompass elements such as concentration of ownership; profit pressures relating to types of ownership; type of funding (such as advertising or paying audiences); and level and intensity of market competition.

•  The journalistic field refers to assumptions that have emerged over time about what constitutes ‘news’, and about the purpose of journalism; practices of news gathering and sourcing; norms of objectivity and impartiality – the ethics and practice of journalism that contribute to the news ecology in any one place at any one moment in time.

2) What is ‘churnalism’ and what issues are there currently in journalism?

To a greater use of unattributed rewrites of press agency or public relations material, and the cut- and-paste practice.

Once you combine the faster and shallower corporate journalism of the digital age with the need to pull in readers for commercial rather than journalistic reasons, it is not difficult to see how the traditional rigour of professional journalism is quickly cast aside. And if they are dominated by the same huge corporate players, the explosion of news platforms online does nothing to counter this. However high the consumption, if the nature of news content serves the interests of the news industry over and above the public’s information needs, more news does not necessarily help democracy.

3) What statistics are provided by Fenton to demonstrate the corporate dominance of a small number of conglomerates? 

Three companies control 71% of UK national newspaper circulation while only five groups control more than 80% of combined online and offline news.

4) What is the 'climate of fear' that Fenton writes about in terms of politics and the media? 

Politicians are fearful of career-wrecking and life- ruining negative publicity, along with damage to their parties’ chances of re-election. Four successive Prime Ministers admitted to The Leveson Enquiry that they were ‘too close’ to the big media players because the political stakes were so very high. In this climate, political parties, the police and other institutions are reluctant to investigate wrong- doing in the news media, hinder the expansion of large media conglomerates, or introduce new regulation of news organisations and journalistic practice. They also avoid certain areas of public policy, for fear either of hostile reporting or media owner conflict, creating an environment where politicians are more likely to discuss populist policies. Journalists are often too intimidated to stand up to a bullying culture where market- oriented managers place commercial priorities above journalistic responsibility and integrity.

5) Fenton finishes her article by discussing pluralism, the internet and power. What is your opinion on this crucial debate - has the internet empowered audiences and encouraged democracy or is power even more concentrated in the hands of a few corporate giants?

I believe the internet empowered audiences and encouraged democracy.