Global Media News

Global Media News Webcast #4: Thursday, September 29, 2016

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This week on Global Media News:

• RT: Spinning the News Russian Style?
• Social Media in the UK
• True Love! Univision Hosts a Gay Wedding Telenovela Style!
• ESPN.IN -- What Is ESPN Doing in India?
• Turkish TV:  An Introduction
• Terrorism & Social Media: Is ISIS Making Friends?
• BBC Radio in the UK
• CBC Radio One's "The Current" 

Global Media News is a weekly webcast covering media news from around the world.  GMN is a production of  Media Studies students from the SUNY College @ Old Westbury.   We scour the web for news about media, journalism and technology. 

Listen to our next webcast from the Global Media Newsroom  streaming live on Thursday, October 6, 2016 @ 10am EST.

Can't listen live? Our next webcast  will be posted by 2:00pm, Thursday, October 6, 2016.

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Yes, China Still has Internet Cafes (Continued..)

    China's Internet cafes are still there, but most are turning into chains instead of small businesses. The amount of cybercafes that are chains is actually 40 percent! That is a big portion of stores and that means that the "small business" guys are starting to lose ground in that business. The reason that this is happening is because China is known as a county that is big on censorship, therefore they want to crack down on it. "The Ministry", they are calling them. They want the number of businesses to go down so that they can keep an eye on only a few chains so it'll be easier for them to surveillance them.

    As I mentioned, China is huge on censorship. Therefore they have a big filter that disallows people to search a lot of things on the internet that a normal U.S. citizen would. "In August [2015], Beijing announced it would further tighten its grip on the country's Internet with the stationing of specialist police officers in major Internet companies". They are calling it a "Great Firewall", which will now expand and tighten, making it even harder to look things up. Apparently the police will mainly be the ones who will manage the online part of it all. Its going to be a way of controlling what people say about the government and if there are any real threats that they will have to step in and handle. Honestly, I think China is only going to be able to watch the people and maintain them for so long because in the end of the day, people will be people. They;re going to do what they want to do and what they think is right.

Television in Turkey

Up until 1990, all television and radio stations were owned by the state under TRT (Turkish Radio and Television Corporation.)

According to the CIA, private owned television in the country includes 635 broadcasting channels. This is an outstanding success rate for Turkish media in a span of less than 30 years. As of 2012, 96% of homes had television in Turkey, which for that year, was 2% more than the United States!  The wide variety of broadcast channels makes Turkey the 7th largest television producer worldwide. You'd be surprised to learn what the population is watching. 

Türkan Ayvalıoğlu, a 36 year old female, shares her preference of television during an interview with Marc Guillet. "I love all CSI series. Also Dexter, ice skating, American fantasy television series ‘Game of Thrones’ and everything on Animal Planet." Her favorite actor? Jack Nicholson!  

Another response from Barış Erdoğru, male age 40. His favorite shows include, " Dexter, The Big Bang Theory, Breaking Bad, Spartacus and CSI."

Hmm..Notice the trend here?

On the contrary, Semra Özbek Akgöl, female age 37,  strictly watches Turkish television. "I don't like foreign shows," she states.

Out of the eight participants in Guillets interviews, more than half are in favor of international television shows. Don't let that discourage you from exploring Turkish entertainment.  Here are a few notable televisions series in Turkish culture today. 

• Magnificent Century, with four seasons, has over 200 million viewers. 
• Ezel, a Turkish crime drama, rated 8/10 on IMDB.
• Karadayı, a drama series featuring a wrongful imprisonment.

  

 

 

ESPN India Will Improve Sports Viewership

As mentioned in my last post, most sports fans around the world are not able to find Indian sports easily. That is set to change with the launch of ESPN.in. According to an article from sporttechie.com, ESPN partnered with Sony and launched a mobile app that features the, "unexploited Indian market." Also stated in the article is the fact that ESPN has been involved with Indian sports before, but this is the first time that ESPN has reached out to the digital market in India.

What's so interesting about the new ESPN.in app is that the app will include not only cricket, which is the most popular sport in India, but it will also include sports like hockey, badminton, tennis, among others. This will help spread the popularity of sports in India to people outside of the country because it will be much easier to find and watch these events. 

From the sports, media, and entertainment section of capitalfortunes.com, it says that the Indian sports scene is, "on the cusp of a revolution," and this new app will absolutely aid in the start of that revolution. With the new professional leagues getting more popular, and an easy way to find them, the Indian sports scene will continue to grow in viewership and revenue. 

Whats the Deal With Internet Cafes in China?

    Internet cafes are a big deal in China. According to newzoo.com, they did the numbers on the total revenues from gaming from each country and China came in first, right in front of the U.S. Granted their population is enormous but that's besides the point. Point is, internet cafes are a big portion of that revenue in China. The censorship in China is drastic and up until recent, people used to go to the internet cafe and spend a fee to use their cafes for anything whether it was the internet, video games, email or whatever. As of now, people are using the internet cafes for games usually because of their home PC's can handle the specs the game needs or because gaming at home ignores their families. Which in the Asian culture, family togetherness is a big deal. So you could say that Internet cafes uses are on the decline as of late.

    Originally, they didn't even allow computers in the households in China because of how censored they were, so they needed internet cafes where you would be more watched. Internet cafes were also a great way of making revenue besides the time-based fee. "In 2002, when Shanda (A Chinese gaming company) had 60 percent of China’s online gaming market, 65 percent of the point sales were through thousands of Internet cafes". You can see the amount of revenue a Internet cafe brought in including more ways than one.

    According to gamasutra.com, Lisa Hanson explains that "In 2015, usage of Internet cafes appeared to be on the decline as the total number of I-cafés had fallen to 135,000 from the high mark of 350,000 shops across the country a decade before". So yes its true the number of people going to Internet cafes has dropped because of personal computers in their homes. In addition to that, Elleka Watts says in her article from thediplomat.com that "Meanwhile over the same time period, mobile phone usage has risen from 66 percent of Internet users in China in 2010, to 76 percent of all users last year". That proves that mobile gaming is a big piece of it also. Cell phones are the current future in this generation and that is another reason why Internet cafes are going downhill in China.

Who's Behind the ISIS Propaganda on Twitter?

The Islamic State (also known as ISIS) militant group has become experts at utilizing Twitter in order to spread their propaganda using social media. The big question is, who is running the show? Many different social media users. An article posted by the Huffington Post covers the topic thoroughly. Extremism expert J.M. Berger and Jonathon Morgan of Ushahidi ("an international nonprofit dedicated to open-source technology") estimate that there are about 46,000 Twitter accounts that are run by supporters of ISIS. Their studies have also made note of the fact that these accounts have a larger average following than the typical Twitter user. According to the chart presented in the article the majority of accounts claim to be located in Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iraq. Iraq has an estimate of about 453 claimed accounts and the United States does not fall far behind with 404. "In December 2014, the militant group ordered its followers to switch location date off, but the study found this command was widely disregarded." 

So how much do they tweet on average? Isis users are the most active users. Each user on average tweets about 7 times a day. "The study found that 62-percent of supporters had tweeted in the previous 30 days, compared to just 13 percent of all Twitter users." Their follower ratio also differs dramatically from the average Twitter user. ISIS supporters have an average of 1,004 followers where as the regular Twitter user has an average of only 208. The "hyperactive" users who are extremely active compared to other supporters, tweet up to 50 times a day each. There is about 18,425 users who that average is based off of. Just those accounts alone could reach up to 900,000 tweets a day combined if they all tweeted 50 times.

ISIS has also taught their followers and promoters to be strategic in their postings. Bursts of tweets in a short period of time makes it easier to get hashtags to trend, making the propaganda more noticeable to the general public.  "To have that many accounts in a very disciplined way out there doing the same thing everyday is a pretty powerful tool." J.M. Berger tells the New York Times. Luckily, Twitter's action taken to shut down any accounts promoting them has stalled and diverted time away from more propaganda being posted and more people being recruited. 

(This chart courtesy of the Huffington Post shows the location that enabled accounts claim to be in.)

 

Radio in Canada and Why "The Current" Is so Successful.

Canada, our neighbor here in the United States, is located in the northernmost part of North America. It only boarders with the United States as its southern territories run along its northern border.

Radio in Canada continues to grow as listeners become more interested in the music and content being presented. Canada is influenced by Britain due to relations throughout history, their political system much like their entertainment organization such as radio has a set up very similar to the United Kingdom’s. The CBC or Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, is parallel to widely known BBC or Britain Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC along with Radio- Canada work together to provide the biggest platform in radio in Canada.

The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches. Similar to the radio style in the UK, CBC has 3 branches of radio, CBC Radio One 2 &3 distinguishing from type of music and entertainment and news. The inconsistency between the word "One" and the numerals "2" and "3" was a deliberate design choice on CBC's part.

Along with Radio One, 2 and 3, the CBC radio also includes, ICI Radio-Canada Première which is Canada’s commercial-free French-language talk radio network and ICI Musique which airs a predominantly Canadian lineup of music and cultural programming.

“The Current”with Anna Maria Tremonti is one the most popular radio shows in Canada. The show serves as a meeting place of perspectives, ideas and voices, with a fresh take on issues that affect Canadians today. What makes this radio show so successful is how they deliver their news. They have people in all regions throughout Canada who are analyzing stories locally and globally. They pride themselves on covering all issues while not just solely discussing them but questioning them as well.  The team working with Tremonti views these issues from multiple angles and break down subjects that are not always uncovered.

Nothing is off limits as topics here in the United States make headline news in radio in Canada. Being so close to the United States takes influence on their news, as even the 2016 Presidential Election is commonly discussed on “The Current”. She Tremonti recently spoke with Garry Trudeau, a Doonesbury cartoonist not to be confused with Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, about why he is drawn to Donald Trump’s ‘unthinkable’ character.

On “The Current” Anna Maria Tremonti also talked about suggestions on how to end racism in legal professions in Canada from a law society report. Her show hits many issues where she is not afraid to speak on matters that may ‘ruffle’ people’s emotions. That is one reason her show remains a success.   

Remaining successful also means following the rules of the CRTC, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which Tremonti seems to do well. The CBC tells us how “Tremonti brings a mix of hard-edged journalism and hard-won empathy to a 90-minute program that tackles everything from the politics of the day, to the changes that affect our society, to the stories of individuals whose personal journeys and traumas affect us all.” The Current’s listeners continuously grow due to her style and delivery of work over the years.

 

 

 

 

Global Media News Webcast #3: Thursday, September 22, 2016

Listen to Global Media News for Thursday, September 22, 2016

This week on Global Media News:

Global Media News is a weekly webcast covering media news from around the world.  GMN is a production of  Media Studies students from the SUNY College @ Old Westbury.   We scour the web for news about media, journalism and technology. 

• Freedom of the Press in Eritrea
• Uganda Elections: President Museveni Shuts Down Social Media
• UK Social Media & Political Unrest
• Fiji Radio: Rules for Content
• Online Journalism Restricted in China
• Mobile & Social Gaming in Japan
• The Rocky Road to K-Pop Stardom 

See you next week!

Listen to our next webcast from the Global Media Newsroom  streaming live on Thursday, September 29, 2016 @ 10am EST.

Can't listen live? Our next webcast of the season will be posted by 2:00pm, Thursday, September 29, 2016.

Subscribe Now!

Radio Regulations in the Fiji Islands

Located in the beautiful South Pacific lies 332 islands and 522 islets.  When combined the number of islands and islets form the beautiful Fiji Islands. With a population of almost 909,389 civilians living amongest the islands, the Fiji Islands is dedicated to bringing local news through it's media power sources (TV/Newspaper/Radio). Though the media is dedicated to bringing local news to it's civilians, the radio stations bring a variety of local content. While these radio stations bring a variety of local content, the corporation/broadcasting companies who own these radio stations must follow a set of established codes. These codes established by the Fijian government is to control what information is released and how that information gets released to the public.

While stations in other nations have a mixture of content between music, commercials, and local news, the content played on Fiji radio stations are mostly local news (Music is played but only on 2 radio stations). The radio stations are divided amongst five sectors. These are broadcasting, commercial, church, community radio, and education/community radio. Throughout Fiji there are 16 radio stations. Two of the radio stations are broadcasting stations ,  10 are commercial stations, two are church stations, one is community radio, and one is education/community radio. The language spoken on these stations are not only done in English. Some stations are spoken in one of the two languages spoken throughout the Fiji Islands. These two languages are Hundustani and Taukei . While there are 16 radio stations each radio station is operated by a corporation/public broadcaster. Some of these corporations/public broadcaster's regulate more than one station. In total there are 7 corporations/public broadcasting companies. The most popular public broadcaster in the Fiji Islands is the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation. To demonstrate how much dominance  this corporation has in radio media the following example is provided. For example, the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation regulates Bula FM 102.6FM, Radio Mirchi 97.8FM, Radio Fiji Two 105FM,Gold FM 100.2FM, Radio Fiji One 93 FM, and 2Day FM 95.4FM. 

While these corporations/ public broadcasters control from as one to as many as 6 radio stations codes must be met as set by the Fijian government. This is done in order to establish censorship. The following codes on what news these radio stations can present and how they present it are the following:

The first censor control law was established in the year 2010. This law was called the Media Industry Development Decree. Under this decree "...it punishes the distribution of content considered to be against public order with large fines or jail" (PACMAS , http://www.pacmas.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/14.-Fiji-PACMAS-Country-Report_FINAL.pdf). This decree also allows the Fiji Media Industry Development Authority to conduct an investigation if they see the codes under the decree are being violated.

However, a new decree was introduced two years later. This new decree allowed Fijians to portray the thoughts and ideas of individuals from government ministers to the public without being thrown in jail or fined. Though these decrees were established or revised within a two year time frame the government also established the following orders. 90% of civilians who have ownership in radio (as well as in other media) must be a citizen of Fiji and

    "...requires that all stories run by the media be balanced, with comment obtained from both sides where there is any disagreement on the facts. This requirement enables government departments and private businesses to prevent stories from being published by not responding to media questions, thus making it impossible for the media to fulfill the decree’s requirement for comment from both sides" (Telecommunications in Fiji,Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_Fiji).

From this alone, this government censorship that has been placed upon radio stations makes it difficult for them to put the Fijian government in a negative light. These codes prevent the radio stations ability to fully express their thoughts and ideas about government policies and from rebelling. To the government's advantage these codes allow Fijian government officials to run the country they best see fit while oppressing those who are around them.

 

 

 

 

 

Did the Media Explode More Than the Actual Bombs in Chelsea?

This passed weekend violent events took place in Chelsea, Manhattan. Pipe Bomber, Ahmad Khan Rahami placed explosives hidden in garbage cans that went off Saturday night. “A deafening explosion…injuring 29 people, blowing out scores of windows and forcing the evacuation of at least two buildings.” says the New York Post. The explosion went off near a construction site in a Dumpster on 131 West 23d Street. After the first device went off, a second device was found blocks away. There was later a bomb explosion in New Jersey. All believed to be placed by the one suspect. There were also pipe bombs found in Elizabeth, New Jersey where the suspect was captured after a shootout. 

Jack Shafer of Politico Magazine released an article just yesterday asking the question, “Was the Terror Coverage More Explosive Than the Bombs?”. Assuming that these explosions were apart of a terrorist plot the media went crazy. (Rightfully so, I’d say) This is scary stuff. Exactly fifteen years after the September 11th attacks, terrorism is still a strong concern on the mind of this nation’s citizens. “Thanks to the cables news channels and some in the Web and print space, we’ve turned it into a mighty conflagration.” says Shafer. (Conflagration: an extensive fire that destroys a great deal of land or property.) He also mentions how Donald Trump jumped to use the media coverage as a way to immediately place blame on our “problematic” leaders. “Terrorism is to New York as hurricanes are to Miami. Even the near-misses are big stories” Shafer states. He also talks about how he would be the last person to say that the press covered these stories too much but that he will say that he feels the terrorist threats have been extremely low. He talks about how he truly feels safe until he turns on the TV. The talk of terrorism and bombings are likely to send anyone into panic mode. Over-thinking will take over the mind. President Obama has constantly reinstated that he feels that the terrorist threat is low but overtime he tries to comfort the country by saying this in the media, it comes out as if he is trying to tell us to “put our heads in the sand” as put by Jack Shafer. This is usually where Donald Trump chimes in. “Once again someone we were told is OK turns out to be a terrorist who wants to destroy our country & its people—how did he get thru system?” Trump posted to Twitter on Monday afternoon. “In the current atmosphere, every terror-motivated crime has come to feel like a dire assault…exploding in the news with much more success than the actual bombs involved.” is a point that Shafer makes very clear throughout this article.

Images Courtesy of New York Post Photographer: Christopher Sadowski