Frankie Boyle on Twitter

The past five days have seen Boyle deliver an absolute masterclass. On Wednesday he punched his thoughts about the Paralympics into Twitter. Weirdly enough, they were not lachrymose salutes to the games' abiding spirit of hope and endeavour but, for the most part, wisecracks that might have fallen from the mouth of any marginally offensive club comedian: "Austrian Paralympians seem a lot more able-bodied than most regular Scottish people… Apparently, the Saudi Arabian Paralympic team is mainly thieves… Sadly, our Paralympian in the high jump isn't expected to match his personal best. But I hear it doesn't count as it was 'Taliban assisted'."

Put another way, it was OK with a joke about a blind and autistic eight-year-old raping his mother – "simply absurdist satire", it insisted at the time – but to crack off-key gags about the Paralympics is apparently verboten.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/02/frankie-boyle-pseudo-media-storm

Twitter, Freedom of Speech and a Teetering Tower of Cards

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ella-walker/twitter-freedom-of-speech_b_1958215.html

This is an article about the freedom of speech we have via Twitter written by journalist, Ella Walker. 

"Sometimes I worry that Twitter is a tower of cards, just waiting to collapse in on itself. Hour after hour we sit reacting to breaking news, getting outraged over some new government announcement (Gove's done what!?) and spitting views on the latest Daily Mail abomination (that Liz Jones needs sectioning etc). We build up issues, each adding our own 140 word's worth, and sometimes it all spirals out of control, it becomes a pit of fractious, quick-fire, one sentence arguments. Or worse, a campaign of disgust and endlessly rolling nit-picking. Sometimes it's valid - see the vitriol directed at the judge in the Justin Lee-Collins case; 140 hours of community service for sustained emotional abuse and fear of violence? Come on! - other times, not-so-much (looking at you, trolls).

But the same titbits of anger and incredulity can get bandied about (ok, retweeted) to such an extent that, particularly if you follow a lot of people who all follow each other, your feed becomes a blurred whir of grouchy repetition. I worry that it might just all eat itself by accident in a mechanical crunch of iPhone keys against speed typing fingernails.

My other worry is that, in fact, the only people who talk any sense are on Twitter. While the rest of the world thinks the Twitterverse is inanely chatting on, procrastinating (what an awful word) and working itself up into a pointless frenzy, when actually it's thrashing out some serious questions, coming up with valid concerns and getting labelled as an ether-zone of time wasters for its trouble.

It's a conundrum, but whoever's side you're on, at least Twitter promotes freedom of speech; a freedom that is dangerously and terrifyingly close to being blitzed. I thought freedom of speech - at least here in Britain - was a right. A certified, non-retractable right. Apparently the courts are currently having other, nightmarishly unreasonable ideas. Locking someone up for a sick and offensive t-shirt? Sending someone down for - albeit vile - Facebook comments? Twitter pranks ending up in front of a judge? Where did all the common sense go? While some should most definitely hold their tongues and withdraw their hands from their keyboards, there are better uses for prison cells than banging up people for speaking their mind."

The article concludes and is then followed by "Follow Ella Walker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EllaEWalker"

This enforces the truth in that despite opinions, Twitter is a huge development towards a socially free society, and people cannot resist joining in the Twitter hype, even if they've just written an article describing the worst aspects.

The Real News, Indymedia and BBC

The Real News

*No advertising, government or corporate funding
*Split news by country and by topic
*Very politically based

Indymedia

*Decribed as a "network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues."
*The entire website is therefore based on stories from locals and not media companies

BBC

*Website mainly based on stories from the UK (showed on homepage) although there are categories for other countries  

Dan Gillmor - We The Media

"We Media is all media that is 'homegrown', local, organic and potentially counter-cultural"

IDEOLOGY (ideas of the rulers) passed down through HEGEMONY; (parents, education, media, culture)
*IT IS A REINFORCEMENT OF IDEAS*

Key Ideas;
         *Being a citizen has to be learned or developed
         *The 'Big Media' (news corps, CNN, BBC etc) have controlled who gets to produce and share media
         *Concentrated choice of media
         *Gillmor sees the internet as a catalyst for a challenge to this established hegemony; citizens use blogs and other online communication tools to share their own news.
         *Bloggers; the former audience. New form of people's journalism.

GRASSROOTS JOURNALISM; local level, activists, joining in with the community
CITIZEN-GENERATED MEDIA; petitions, pages made by locals
GLOBAL CONVERSATION; the topic of conversation worldwide; Twitter trends
GLOBAL AUDIENCE; people following trending topics online

"The rise of the citizen-journalist will help us listen. The ability of anyone to make news give a voice to the people who have been voiceless for years" (Gillmor, 2006)

KEY POINT --> It seems odd to think giving people this opportunity for voice can be negative; the Royals for example. They were given an opportunity to socialise with Prince Harry but instead they take photos to sell.

Dan Gillmor is interested in WHAT a journalist is nowadays. he likes new media technologies (eg YouTube) and believes the future of the internet is unpredictable and unexpected.

Web 2.0

OLD, NEW WE MEDIA, FUTURE OF MEDIA

*Making is connecting

*UTOPIAN AND DYSTOPIAN views

è Web 2.0 is a metaphor

è Moving away from ‘passive’ consuming (no more watching TV for 4 hours a day)

è Pleasure from creating

è Engaging with the environment

è Using the internet in the way Tim Berners-Lee intended

è ‘Everyday’ creativity

*People want to make the world their own; customising their phone, customising their desk with photos and ornaments etc, Facebook

*People want to make their mark on the world; graffiti, novels

*People want to be social; connections, common interests

*People want to be creative; needs to be channelled, tools, making things

MAKING THINGS à SHARING THINGS

The ‘Making and Doing’ culture

è Networks

è Connecting with knowledge hands on

CRITICISMS

*Loss of high-brow culture – forgetting how to write because there is no necessity

*Sharing can be the sharing of negativity; eating disorders, nasty comments, riots, terrorism, porn, loss of privacy/security, danger

*There is still a passive audience who are not being creative

*Personalised advertisements (predicted through recent search history)

Active Media

*Facebook
*Twitter
*Hotmail
*Webmail
*Amazon/Ebay
*Blogger
*ITV Player
*BBC iPlayer
*Catch-up TV
*Skype
*YouTube
*Wikipedia
*Recipe websites
*TED lectures
*Daily Mail Online

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is a concept that takes the network as a platform for information sharing and collaboration on the Internet or World Wide Web. 

The term 'Web 2.0' was first used in January 1999 by Darcy DiNucci, a consultant on electronic information design. In her article, "Fragmented Future", DiNucci wrote:

"The Web we know now, which loads into a browser window in essentially static screenfuls, is only an embryo of the Web to come. The first glimmerings of Web 2.0 are beginning to appear, and we are just starting to see how that embryo might develop."

The Web 2.0 site allows users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where consumers are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them. 
Examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services, web applications and mash-ups. 

The Leveson Inquiry

The Prime Minister announced a two-part inquiry investigating the role of the press and police in the phone-hacking scandal, on 13 July 2011. Lord Justice Leveson was appointed as Chairman of the Inquiry. The first part will examine the culture, practices and ethics of the media. In particular, Lord Justice Leveson will examine the relationship of the press with the public, police and politicians. He is assisted by a panel of six independent assessors with expertise in key issues being considered by the Inquiry. 

The Inquiry has been established under the Inquiries Act 2005 and has the power to summon witnesses. It is expected that a range of witnesses, including newspaper reporters, management, proprietors, police officers and politicians of all parties will give evidence under oath and in public. It will make recommendations on the future of press regulation and governance consistent with maintaining freedom of the press and ensuring the highest ethical and professional standards.

Lord Justice Leveson opened the hearings on 14 November 2011, saying: “The press provides an essential check on all aspects of public life. That is why any failure within the media affects all of us. At the heart of this Inquiry, therefore, may be one simple question: who guards the guardians?” The Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the press is running in four modules. 

These are: Module 1: The relationship between the press and the public and looks at phone-hacking and other potentially illegal behaviour. Module 2: The relationships between the press and police and the extent to which that has operated in the public interest. Module 3: The relationship between press and politicians. Module 4: Recommendations for a more effective policy and regulation that supports the integrity and freedom of the press while encouraging the highest ethical standards.