flococo

A blog focusing on journalism and things that peak my interest

[flococo]

Gogglebox. It's Even Fun to Say.

We are the journalists of our own lives. We report our opinions on thought provoking (or mind numbing) things we experience to those around us, so what better than to watch the workings of others sat in the same position? Gogglebox was an instant hit when it aired in 2013, and it’s still a Friday night event that can’t be missed – not in my opinion anyway, so I fit the tone of the programme. As a nation we love television, and annoyingly a lot of us like to talk loudly over it when we have a comment about what we’re watching. Gogglebox follows a small group of families and friends across the country as they sit down each week to watch what’s happening on the box (hence the ‘goggle’ and the ‘box’), and we find great amusement in hearing their honest thoughts on anything from the news, to Strictly Come Dancing. We laugh, cry and relate with the cast, made all the more easy by the fact they’re not encouraged to give any opinion but their own. No wonder the show won a Bafta in 2013, as there’s no denying we all love a bit of honesty and light-hearted humour when it comes to hearing what’s going on in the world. Okay, so they’re not sources of factual information, but they give back to those who report the news and create our TV shows, representing the British public, which I think is a valuable thing for the rest of us to witness. There comes a point when we get fed up of hearing from authoritative voices and want to hear from people like us. However, Kirsty Allsop didn’t take too kindly to the remarks she got from the cast about her crafty Christmas show, saying it was "the worst form of vile, mean, cruel television". I hate to say this, Kirsty, but honesty can be like that. Hearing a middle-aged woman talk about making 20 pairs of tie-dye knickers doesn’t scream ‘take me seriously’. One thing I will say is it was unnecessary for the producers to include the cast’s comments about Kirsty’s weight gain. I suppose that’s the side effect of honest television.

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I'm a Normal Girl, in a Barbie World

With air brushed photographs of perfect women dominating the media, it’s no wonder girls are having self-esteem issues younger and younger. Women have perfectly toned stomachs, long and slender legs, dainty features, but manage to maintain their voluptuous bums and boobs. Surely our youth can’t think that’s reality? The point isn’t weather or not they think it’s real, because chances are they know what goes on in the editing room. The point is it still has a damaging impact on them, and even s adults, because most of us are so far from those goddesses that we see ourselves as far less attractive than we really are. I loved Barbies when I was a little girl, owning around 100 (shamefully). I particularly loved how long and thick their hair was, and their ‘grown-up’, ‘womanly’ features that I might one day have, but back then I didn’t consider that being the weight you want is a lot of work, and you can’t choose how you develop. I was blissfully unaware of the damage magazines and celebrity gossip journalists would inflict on my absorbent mind. Luckily Barbies didn’t have a lasting effect, and I’m comfortable enough in my own skin to ignore the media telling me to be perfect. Sadly that’s not so easy for everybody – male or female. They’re telling boys they need to be sculpted, and girls they need to be petite. Not only are they giving girls and boys false expectations of themselves, but also of each other. More and more pressure is being added from every angle. The Telegraph reported in 2008 that airbrushing celebrities ‘could be banned’, but that never happened of course. This year artist Nickolay Lamm decided to take a stand on the issue, starting by aiming the change at our youngest audience by creating ‘Lammily’. ‘Lammily’ has been nicknamed in the media as the ‘Normal Barbie’, coming with stretch mark, cellulite, and acne stickers. Her measurements, according to an article by Kashmira Gander for The Independent, are relative to that of a standard 19-year old girl in the US, and her makeup doesn’t resemble a human My Little Pony. Who knows if she’ll help young girls understand that real women have imperfections, or if she’ll be a fun sticker game that’ll be forgotten about when those young girls hit puberty and find pictures of celebrities to idolise. Maybe we should be focusing more on teaching our young girls and boys that both genders are subject to insecurities, and they should support each other. The media should be taking the pressure off. God knows there’s enough for us to worry about, so our waistlines and muscle tone shouldn’t be one of them.

[flococo]

Information Congregation

I’d never heard of Storify before being told to give it a go, and I don’t know if I’ll be using it again. From what I gathered, it’s a tool to collect already existing information on the internet from a multitude of sources (Twitter, YouTube, news organisations, etc…) to build a story with all the material out there already about it. I do think it’s an excellent idea and I would definitely consider looking at stories other people have created, but I think the Storifies I scraped together were flimsy, and I much prefer writing up about what I’ve read. While I was playing around with creating my own, the Queen had just sent out her first tweet and ebola was at the height of discussion, so I had some good material to work with. However, despite the abundance of topics, I felt like I was pulling things out of the air to a space intended to make reading up on them easier; I just mashed them together unsuccessfully. These things are experiments though, and Storify’s not for everyone. A dedicated story builder would present to their audience a variety of different perspective on one given thing that their audience might not have explored on their own. Things like breaking news benefit from websites like this, as we’re always hungry for more information on scandalous or shocking news. It’s just human nature. To find multiple sources in a neat little package saves a lot of time and browsing. For personal interest Storifies, I feel there are better ways to interact with the target audience; if you’re interested in something, you want to take the time to research it and come across unexpected branches. Things like Instagram and YouTube are good platforms to start from when it comes to personal interest topics, as they tend to advertise other outlets through suggestions (ads or encouragement from video makers, or links in Instagram posts). To put it simply, they’re more personal, which is a plus for personal interest features. So I’m not knocking Storify, but I’d say it’s for a particular type of reporting.

[flococo]

Do John Lewis Now Sell Emotional Roller Coasters?

I think we all know to expect an emotional journey in the form of a Christmas advert from John Lewis as soon as mid November approaches, maybe featuring a jingly version of a popular song and some cute animals to tug on the heart strings. It all seemed to start in 2007 with the shadow advert, but I personally think the formula that began the cult ad movement for John Lewis was in 2011. That year saw the Smiths being covered by Slow Moving Millie, played over the story of a young boy who was seemingly so excited to receive Christmas presents that he spent the lead up sitting around like a…restless chicken? Butter wouldn’t melt, but what was this advert for? Who knows? There was no hint towards the brand, the product, or why the tone was so emotionally demanding. The heart wrenching moment the audience realised his excitement was stemming from his want to give his parents a present – sobbing. When it came to the end and ‘John Lewis’ appeared on the screen, for one I think a lot of people were glad it wasn’t another one of McDonalds’ weird misleading adverts (that we all wish weren’t so good), and we all recognised the power John Lewis had as a brand. The year after was the year of the sad snowman who used ‘The Power of Love’ to miraculously glide all the way to a John Lewis store to get his cold-hearted snow girlfriend a nice, red scarf set. They’d only just met each other! This one had Gabrielle Aplin covering the Frankie Goes to Hollywood song, but with an unmistakable tone to make grown men cry. Again, John Lewis got us right in the feelings. Come November 2013 everyone was speculating about what JL would do next. Of course, they created a cute little narrative with a bear, a hare, and (presumably) a John Lewis alarm clock set to wake the hibernating bear in time for Christmas. Lily Allen covered Keane’s song ‘Somewhere Only We Know’, but with twinkly piano notes and her ‘Mockney’ accent as James Lachno put for The Telegraph. Had they run out of classics? Either way, that’s the only version of the song television watchers are going to remember from now on. This brings us to the present day: Monty the penguin. Ever striving to make extravagant, Hollywoodesque effort, JL’s creative team used advanced CGI animation to create a believable relationship between a boy and his pet penguin. First of all, Monty turned out to be a stuffed toy, and secondly £1m is a hell of a lot to spend on 120 seconds of broadcasting material. Still, the general public got to emotionally indulge once again, this time with the help of Tom Odell’s rendition of ‘Real Love’, originally (but not popularly known) a John Lennon song (hey, look at that, John Lewis’s initials). If you can’t tell by now, I’m mocking the pretentious tone they’ve so beautifully mastered, but I can’t help admiring how much they can dismiss featuring their own products and still have sales booms. I love them, and I’ll be waiting in anticipation for next year’s advert like the rest of you.

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How Can I Put This Legally? I Just Won't Write It.

With the age of the Internet making easy for fast journalism, journalists are facing growing legal challenges. Hearing the words ‘libel’ and ‘defamation’ on the news is becoming a common occurrence, with an increasing amount of journalists involved in court battles over misrepresenting public figures and organisations in the press. Careful attention to detail, as to not fall into the trap of soiling someone’s reputation through poor use of language or wording, is all too common to slip up on, and an endless number of journalists are being sued for libel. Before fully reading up on it, I had no idea how serious the repercussions are or how easy it is to do, but with my newly gained knowledge I’m quite frankly repelled from writing about topics within the danger zone; opinion can so quickly turn into a defamatory statement without permanent intentions, but once made public it can sometimes become impossible to rectify. As it is now so easy for people to publish their own work and influence those around them, it seems the problem is not contained to just journalists, and anyone can be approached to remove their material from the Internet. However, as a journalists job entails constantly presenting facts and opinions, the threat of the law encroaching upon them makes it all the more risky and they’re likely to slip up at some point. The Defamation Act 2013 sought to protect publishers who believed their work was within the public’s interest, and to reinstate their confidence to continue writing, ‘[reducing] the occurrence of self-censorship.’ Protecting freedom of speech through the new act is helping relieve journalist’s anxiety surrounding libel, but reading, re-reading, and reading once more to eliminate any causes for concern is the only sure way to avoid getting into potentially serious and costly trouble.

[viceuk]

BREAKING: SOMEONE KEEPS SHITTING IN A POOL SO HARD THAT A WEEKLY CHILDREN’S DISCO IS IN DANGER OF BEING CANCELLED.

[flococo]

Hahaha that's amazing

[flococo]

Journalism: Changing but Still Important

When making the important choice of modules for third year, I chose News and Journalism because I believed, and still believe, it contains information that can be applied in a real working environment. Why is it important? As humans we’re constantly looking for information, and it seems there are never too many angles to read a single story from. Being able to offer new thoughts on an existing topic and appealing to human nature is something we do every day – it’s what we’re programmed to do – but doing it professionally with a multitude of resources would mean offering the reader something extra. When I say journalism is what we’re programmed to do, I don’t mean we’re all writers. I mean we’re all carriers of opinions and information, and we find satisfaction in sharing what we know with each other to enrich the lives of those around us and showcase our knowledge. Stories are built up of many different accounts, which is why journalism is so important in concentrating those parts into a digestible format, and learning the skills needed to successfully compile information. With the world of journalism ever changing, bringing the ordinary person into the story with options to comment and contact writers directly through social media sites, we’re now in a place where we can extract exactly what we want from journalists, and their voice becomes a pivotal point for discussion rather than a stationary account. So there’s many reasons branching off of sharing knowledge as to why journalism is important to practice, but the exciting opportunities to become an active audience has created a more widespread importance. 

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Do They Know They Can Write New Lyrics?

Since the release of the new Band Aid 30 song, Do They Know it’s Christmas? (the new lyrics reading ‘heal the world’), many famous singers have spoken out AGAINST the Christmas single. Big names such as Adele and Lily Allen have chosen to donate privately to charity, Lily Allen telling the Mail Online that the project was ‘smug’ and just a ‘success club’ of celebrities. Bob Geldof decided to directly pinpoint Adele for not appearing on the track, publicly shaming her for ignoring producer’s requests to do her bit. Little did he know, or even need to know, Adele donated to charity with actual money, rather than giving her time to what’s becoming a stale tradition. As Bryony Gordon so adequately put for The Telegraph, “gosh, it looks like a school photo on mufti day!” – it’s hard to argue with that, seeing as half the cast are a teenage girls kryptonite, or Xfactor’s leftovers. Even more irritatingly, YouTube famous Zoe Sugg (Zoella) and her Brother Joe Sugg appear to be present on the cast list. Since when did they sing? Even if they do, their attendance won’t make the slightest difference to the Ebola epidemic unless their fans, following their blog because they cover “EVERYTHING, from fashion to beauty…” (I’m sorry, where’s everything else, ‘Zoella’?), decide to donate through buying the repetitive single. I’m not slating the idea of creating a musical exchange for a charitable donation, but the backlash on singers not interested, and the outdated lyrics drag the cause down to a point where it’s verging on being utterly tasteless. Even Emeli Sandé, a willing participant, piped up saying Geldof didn’t include her revised lines in the final cut, and she reckons the whole song needs to be rewritten for the changing cause.

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[flococo]

I'm Not Ready for Microblogging

I’m not a regular user of Twitter, but for a recent assignment based around microblogging I had to post and retweet a series of journalism related topics. As easy as it may sound to the dedicated Twitter user, for me it was hard not to veer off topic and tweet material of general interest. I found that the more successful microbloggers – journalism organisations and celebrity posts – were effective as real-time updates for followers like myself, so my posts were more of a regurgitation of the already circulating information. Although the point of social media outlets like Twitter is to produce, but more importantly share, pre-existing snippets of news, I didn’t feel like I was adding much to the party. What I did gain from the experience of microblogging was the understanding of the freedom websites like Twitter gives to the ordinary person interested in posing their own questions and thoughts. I appreciated the directness it involved, but found the format of 140 characters per post was very limiting. With practice I understand it can be used to the advantage of the publisher, as there is little space to bore your readers and you can advertise a link to a more in-depth blog like this, giving your followers a little preview so they have a choice whether or not to read on. Microblogging is also a precious tool for live bloggers, as it works almost like an online texting system, reaching the target audience within seconds and leaving the door open to discussion. The instantaneous nature of a microblog allows for the publisher to use shortened versions of words and is more forgiving when it comes to grammatical errors, which are pretty embarrassing to some. True to the design, it makes the style accessible to everyone, no matter what his or her writing style is like. So from a general perspective, I can see microblogging is a modern tool well suited to the increasing speed of today’s media, but from a personal standpoint, I don’t think I’m ready to jump on the bandwagon with both feet.