Media In The United States of America

Though the USA likes to pride itself of on it's freedom, in the media industry there is little for those wanting to expose the truth. The USA should be an ideal place to be able to report truth, but as many have found, (Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Julien Assange.) it really is not.

Through my research I discovered the USA's media market is a place for the rich and the ruthless rather than the adventurous and brave. The main stay of the market is gobbled up by under ten huge corporations, vertically integrated as to cut out excess costs. In terms all this does is drive business' who have fought for years to keep their name in the game to bankruptcy. Lovefilm, a revolutionary platform of watching media was driven out of business by the corporations creating their own platforms, rather than working with Lovefilm. When Lovefilm did go bankrupt, Amazon swept in to take the royalties and assets.

The news division of the media is concise. The majority of main stream news is owned at the top by a huge corporation who can plough their own agenda through these platforms they now own. Fox news is a staggering example of this. Fox produces a strange right wing format of programming with little care for factual accuracies and peoples feelings. Instead of host an intelligible debate, Fox prove their points by overloading the studio with 'experts' who share the same agenda as fox and ganging up on the one guest who doesn't. It teaches any Children watching that the way to win an important argument is to lie and to shout.

This is killing the roots of the journalism profession in America. Investigative journalism is becoming harder to practice, and less desirable to practice. Local news is filled with garbage stories aimed for who exactly, no one knows. Country-wide news is essentially a shouting match with little important being discussed. This leaves America in a scary position, the youth who will be soon to vote will know essentially nothing about politics or on how to make an informed decision on how to vote.

The examples of whistleblowers over such recent times show us that America is not a place of freedom. Especially if you wish to expose the truth when it is morally right to do so. The lesson this displays to the rest of the world from such an influential power is terrible.

Unfortunately these problems stem from the USA's reluctance to govern how much of the market can be owned by one singular company. There is little alternative view available on television or radio, but the internet has helped over the last fifteen years in a resurgence of alternate media. I plan to explore how alternate media can survive in the modern US media market and world-wide. 

Below are the accompanying slides from my presentation.

Media in France

France has one of the largest populations in Europe with around 66 million people living in the republic [1]. The capital city, Paris, is in fact the 5th most populated city in Europe [7], while also ranking 6th in ‘Top 10 Richest Cities In The World 2013’ [8]. Furthermore, as of the 2012 May elections, the current President of the country is the ‘Socialist Party’ leader François Hollande. One of the most interesting concepts around the electoral system in France is their unique governing system implicated; the elected President appoints a Prime minister (in this case Manuel Valls), with who they will share their granted executive powers with [along with the cabinet]. This system is referred to as ‘semi-presidential’ governing and is only used in 28 countries around the world including Russia.

Semi-presidential system countries [http://chartsbin.com/view/12813]

Though currently the French media is not strictly regulated by the government, there are laws that prohibit certain aspects of the constitutional right to ‘freedom of speech’. These prohibitions are essentially when one infringes another individuals right or promotes hate upon a particular "ethnic group, a nation, a race or a religion" [9]. Therefore, much like the American constitution amendments and laws have been passed, e.g. Gayssot Act. Furthermore, the CSA (Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel) are in fact a regulatory body that deals with electronic sources of media violation (TV and radio mainly). They are often an advisory body, but can be the cause of censorship.

According to figures, the French Media industry is responsible for around 14.8% of Europe’s total industry valuation. Unsurprisingly, France’s media worth is set to rise by 11.6% from $40.4 billion to $45.4 billion by 2018. 

Much of the French media is dominated by broadcast & cable TV and the publishing sector (41.4% + 41.1%), together responsible for 82.5% of the market [2]. This kind of domination has resulted in huge media companies making a large profit, for example ‘Vivendi’; the biggest entertainment organisation in France. The revenue for this particular company was $27.44 billion in 2013 [4]. 

Figures showing decline in revenue for Vivendi
[http://www.statista.com/statistics/194506/global-revenue-of-vivendi-since-2006/]

However, recently figures suggest that the media companies revenue has decreased meaning that sales within the media has. Since 2010 Vivendi has lost around $6.7 billion of annual revenue [4]. These declining figures tend to be consistent throughout the media in France, with ‘Le Figaro’, the largest national selling newspaper, supporting the trend recently having their worst circulation figure of the last decade [330,952 compared to 366,690].

Essentially, the cause of these declines throughout the French media could be due to the recent technological advances that have exploited new platform’s undermining the media’s use. The internet is beginning to present opportunities that are easier and faster than what the media can produce. Simplifying it; the internet has a huge penetration and accessibility in comparison to the media and in particular news organisations. France has a internet penetration rate of 83.3%, which is larger percentage than any French newspaper currently has [10]. 

In conclusion the media organisations within France have begun to acknowledge illegal piracy and the huge accessibility the internet offers to the public. Therefore, much like Facebook has done (harnessed the power accessibility offers, evident in 25.5 million people having accounts on Facebook in France) the media has now switched focus to online content. 

Media in Somalia

Media in Somalia 

Somalia, a country in Africa with the capital, Mogadishu. Mogadishu has been bearing scars of decades of fighting. The country has been usually involved in civil war. It is comprised of a former British protectorate and an Italian colony, Somalia was created in 1960 when the two territories merged. Since then its development has been slow.

The region remains flawless with no effective administration or institution in place.

Federal government of Somalia, the first permanent central government was formed in the start of the civil war but due to the absence of power residents reverted to local forms of conflict resolution consisting of civil, religious and customary laws.

The main few regions in Somalia are: - Somaliland , Puntland and Galmudug who emerged for the process of decentralization. Radical group such as Al-Shabaab battled with the groups for the control over the country. 

The media environment in Somalia varies significantly from region-to-region, with different conditions in the unstable parts of Somalia. 

Somalia’s new provisional federal constitution, adopted by the National Constituent Assembly in August 2012, provides, Freedom of Speech. However due to violence in the country, journalist face restrictions on the reporting in practice. No freedom of information to guarantee access. Many cases are resolved outside the court either according to Xeer (customary law) or Islamic law. 

Somalia is considered having the most literate in Africa anda country where power has overtime been abused more constantly. Media has been used and misused; often to manipulate, control and inflame tension, hate and conflict. This shows the media’s role in shaping Somalia’s present and future. 

Without a central government since 1991; making it the longest running instance of complete state collapse in postcolonial history. This development is been driven by the evolving role of business groups, traditional authorities and civic groups.

Al-Shabaab means the youth and has been banned as a terrorist group by both the US and the UK They are building a media empire and creation chaos in Kenya. Though they use social media; they have been a group always against and killing journalist and shutting down the media outlets in Somalia.

The Somali government recently shutdown two independent radio stations, accusing them of inciting violence among Somali’s. 

Latest news from the BBC – Blast near airport in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, linked to the Al-Shabaab. 

Journalists in all regions receive no or low pay. Many media outlets prefer to hire cheaper, less skilled workers the ones who ask for more pay are threat to be replaced.

At least six journalist and media workers killed this year with continuing reports of further targeting and harassment.

No doubt; journalism is in deep trouble in Somalia along with the media; but this is one of the country where journalist have risked or resisted more in the face of appalling attacks. Many people fled but they still have a large number and some even say that they would rather die defending the freedom of Somali media.

Training on human rights, good governance and to fight forthe truth and being the right source for the people. 

Journalist need to learn their rights because some of the media owners do not know the laws of media and some of the journalist don’t know the ethics of journalism and thus people have faith that one day this country will be a land of opportunities.

Can Young Voters Trust Who They Vote For?

Now more than ever the young vote counts, as was proved in the 2010 election where the Liberal Democrats received a major increase in their usual amount of seats.

My question is can young voters make an informed accurate decision on who they’re voting for this upcoming summer? I think not, unless you want to spend time to really dig deep into the parties. For the casual voter who has little interest in politics in day to day life, they will have a couple of ways to base their decision. One will be in the live debates shown across different TV platforms. Another will be from all the speculation in newspapers about promises and policies in the upcoming months.

There is one problem with the latter option, all these papers have political allegiance. Due to papers allegiances with parties it makes it hard for a casual voter to make the decision. With the Sun tearing apart Labours new policy while the Guardian pokes at Cameron’s latest gaffe’s, who is he meant to trust? And why are they to trust these media moguls? With phone hacking and libel claims being settled weekly they print media is hardly giving a good account for itself and is creating an unstable environment for democratic politics to be in. It creates an idea of us and them rather than informing the voter of the straight up facts of each party allowing them to make an informed decision. 

The television debates don’t offer much more than the papers. They’re set up in a way that by the end you only know which politician is the best orator. When you should be finding out which is the best leader for you, this is not helpful. Nick Clegg proved in last election debates that he was a brilliant talker, especially about policies.

But what Nick Clegg proved a year later was that he was only a good talker, and not much more. The whole of Nick Clegg’s election campaign was based around the fact the Lib Dems would not let University fees increase. Which made like a vote for Lib Dem seem like a wasted vote for the younger votes come one year later when University fees had been upped to £9,000.

Ultimately, the fact our views on TV and money for the papers is more important to the media than how we vote. Unfortunately this leaves young voters in a poor position. They are ill informed and left with no real idea on who will help them. 

On that day in May when we all decide who shall keep the country ticking for the next five years, there will be a shock. A shock that the turnout is low, especially amongst younger voters. Young people are disillusioned with politics, we don’t want to hear from Labour why the Tories can’t handle the debt. we don’t want to hear from the Tories why Labour put us in this much debt.  We don't want to know what we can do for you, rather what you can do for us.