Saturday 25 December 2010

Democracy - Regulation - Was the Telegraph sting against Vince Cable illegal?

The Telegraph journalists who posed as constituents to entrap MPs may have committed a criminal offence
Two journalists misrepresented themselves as constituents of members of parliament to gain access to appointments at their advice surgeries, and proceeded secretly to record their conversations with the MPs – conversations from which their editors then quoted selectively in prominent front-page stories. Is this ethical? Is it even legal?
Read the whole story here.

And the follow up...
Vince Cable 'quite angry' about Daily Telegraph sting
Business secretary says paper's decision to send journalists posing as mothers to his surgery has done 'great damage' to relationship between MPs and constituents
Read the whole article here.

Now a response to the situation from a blogger - talktorex.co.uk:
In which the word 'irony' is used so ironically that it ceases to mean anything
I have already ranted about former-broadsheet-turned-caky-rag The Daily Telegraph's increasingly hypocritical, unjournalistic and exploitative content, in a blog post which caused one petulant reviewer to suggest that I have a 'tin ear for journalistic irony'.

Saturday 18 December 2010

Media and Democracy - The Anonymous WikiLeaks protests are a mass demo against control

The Anonymous WikiLeaks protests are a mass demo against control
The actions against MasterCard and Amazon are not 'hacking'. People are just finding a way to protest in a digital space

Read full article here.

Viral marketing: how film fans have caught the bug

More than a trailer, director Neill Blomkamp's new video leads fans on a digital treasure hunt for clues about his next movie. It's a game increasing numbers of film-makers are playing

(Blomkamp directed District 9)
Read the full article here.

Extract:
Social networking encourages a see-and-then-share habit for moviegoers, and it's taken a step further this year – just observe the excitement and commercial reward generated by this year's viral campaigns for Inception and Tron. Yet despite the commercial motivation, most fans appear to be enjoying the shift. Viral movie marketing encourages engagement with cinema, wider conversation and expands the worlds of movies people love. In the case of Blomkamp's new video, far from merely being a trailer for a forthcoming project, the short might be seen as a starting point for a digital egg hunt.

Henry Jenkins site - Fandom and DIY vids


Henry Jenkins, author of the Convergence Culture (highly recommended read for your course), writes the Part 3 of this series in the following link to The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins.

The following is an interview with Tim Park from AnimeMusicVideos.org in which he responds to [Jenkins'] questions about the anime fan scene. . .