Category Archives: Initiative

Initiative 12

To be honest, I do not know how to write this blog, so I can only write some of my feelings in this project. What I want to express is my particular appreciation to my two group members.

At the beginning, I did not know what the project was going to do, because I know nothing except that I needed to find 4 reading materials and write 800 articles. I did not know how to reach the structure of the entire audio content. But my group members told me that we do not need to worry too much, we will come out new ideas. Afterwards, we began to decide the contents we responsible for, I just started to feel at ease. I am not a person who is good at making orders to others, but a person who likes to accept someone else’s orders and take actions. So in this project, Zane and Marie often ask me what I want to do, every time I can only answer I do not know or I can think of nothing. Zane is a particularly competent person, so I ask him on everything I cannot understand. I was assigned to responsible for interview, but because I am afraid of embarrassment or fear of being rejected, so I can never ask questions first. Zane helped me to interview two people until I had the courage to interview the two persons left. In the later recording, although Marie is responsible for the entire structure, but in fact Zane is the most busy person, and the final audio editing is charged by him, we are just give him some advice. I appreciate him so much because he led us to complete the project.

Marie is a nice person, and she often helps me. She is responsible for the organization/structure of the audio works and offers us some ideas. At the interview, she followed me and gave supplement   when necessary. Not only that, I forgot the content of a sentence I recorded, she also helped me warmly.

I reflect on what I did. I interviewed two people, put forward some views and recorded the teacher’s evaluation in the interview of the project. I know that I have done little in the project and I am somewhat disappointed about my performance. But I will learn slowly! This is the first time I have cooperated with others in the university to complete a complex project. What I can do is little, but I have known how to be a good leader in this cooperation, known how to finish my own work well, but also heard lot of different creative ideas to do the work better later. This is my greatest gains in this project!

Initiative 10

I wanna say something about Internet advertising at this time. Also, it could relate to social media.

To date, the shift to internet advertising has had more financial impact on the print media, than TV. However technological advancements may change this (O’Shaughnessy: 2012: 155). Indeed, although TV advertising is still the biggest medium, it is declining as viewers watch TV differently e.g. Netflix. The gap is therefore narrowing between TV and online advertising.

  • Internet advertising is growing by 15%, but traditional media advertising by less than 3% (Zenith Optimedia)
  • So why are companies abandoning traditional media? (e.g. TV, radio, magazines, newspapers)
    They need to follow audiences/markets. Companies are finding advantages online such as lower costs; customer profiling can lead to targeted advertising; and creates exposure to international markets.

As you will be well aware, many new media advertising $$$$$s are being invested in social media advertising

  • Social media sites by definition must carry content that is based on user participation and user-generated content. The sheer amount of time users are spending on social media make it impossible for marketers to ignore
  • Some of the more common social media sites and applications advertisers use include Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Pinterest, and blogs.

Facebook Inc. June 2016 

1.13 billion daily active users; 1.03 billion via mobile

Instagram August 2016 

400 million active users; 75% users from outside the US; 85% of top brands throwing their weight into Instagram

  • Originally advertising was a monologue via traditional media but new media and social media in particular allows for a ‘conversation’ to take place whereby brands can communicate with people (more about this when we explore branding)
  • Likewise people can communicate with brands, products, services (often via Twitter) commenting on effectiveness of campaigns or even acting as a form of regulation if offense is taken to a particular ad
  • Marketers are able to collect data, via Twitter, Facebook, blogs, forums etc. on what people think about their product. This can lead to new ad campaigns or possibly even new products

Initiative 9

Today, I wanna talk about newspaper!

Newspapers in the 20th Century tended to be broadsheet (large and quality, The Australian) or tabloid (small, sensational and popular, Herald Sun). This century the compact joined them (quality in small form, same size as tabloid, The Sydney Morning Herald) .

The Broadsheet

  • Larger, often A2 size (imagine 2 x A3 photocopy paper sheets)
  • Detailed, factual stories
  • Complex language, long stories, fewer photos (colour arrived in the 1980s)
  • Extensive coverage of politics,economics,business,international news and the most important events of the day (papers of record)
  • AB readership – ‘upmarket’, readers come from upper socio-economic groups

The tabloid 

  • Half the size of a broadsheet – suited to public transport
  • Simple language with large font, dramatic headlines
  • Extensive use of photographs
  • Sensational stories – often exaggerated, appealing to the emotions (lots of soft news)
  • Extensive coverage of sport, crime, entertainment, local stories, celebrities
  • Mass audience
  • Targets a lower socio – economic readership

The compact

  • Compacts are quality newspapers printed in tabloid format/size
  • These are particularly popular in the UK. Once The Independent adopted this format in 2003, other quality papers followed
  • Some broadsheets have become compacts to stay relevant, attract public transport commuters and reduce costs
  • Examples include UK: The Times, The Scotsman and now Aus: The Age

Newspapers in the 21st C

  • More reflective. It is not possible to be immediate with the news and compete with radio/TV/Internet. Instead they run more in-depth, feature and investigative pieces uncovering the why and how of the reporting Ws.
  • More diversified. As well as news, papers now carry magazine and lift-out sections for niche, specialised interests, attracting new readers.
  • More visual. Enhanced production quality with more colour photos and clearer, cleaner layouts attract readers (more magazine-like)
  • More popular. Newspapers have been accused of heading downmarket and dumbing down, embracing more ‘soft’ stories about celebrities and lifestyle.
  • More cost-effective. Cost cutting includes reducing staff numbers, closing overseas offices, using news agencies more, moving to smaller premises, downsizing broadsheets to compacts, sharing resources across traditional and online versions of the paper…
  • More diversified media forms and business models. All digital newspapers now have online advertising and some have erected online paywalls (readers must subscribe to see all content) to offset costs