If it Bleeds, it Leads

After spending several weeks in Oxford, I have noticed one thing in particular about British news coverage: there is very little local news broadcasted on airways. From what I can tell, most citizens get quick updates on national and international coverage on BBC and move on with their day. Coming from America, where almost every city has its own local station, I found that rather odd. But is it really such a loss?

A quick scroll through Atlanta’s WSBTV’s webpage revealed that there have been four critical car crashes and five violent crimes committed in Atlanta in the past two days. When you consider the entire Atlanta metropolitan area, those odds aren’t terrible, but when the stories are concentrated on a single news page, they can be a little overwhelming. This seemed like a prime example of how Atlanta news cultivates its viewers to have a strong Mean World Syndrome. According to a 2013 Pew study, 71 percent of Americas who report using broadcast news as their main form of news-gathering rely primarily on local news channels. If Americans do in fact rely heavily on local news broadcasts, they may be getting a skewed since of the world from the high volume of violent crime coverage.

As it turns out, Oxfordshire does in fact have a local news outlet. A scroll through their news page revealed that only two violent crimes have been reported in the past two days. I couldn’t find a similar study about British news-gathering habits, but local news outlets do not seem as prominent among citizens here as they are in America. That fact combined with the lower number of violent news stories suggest that British media cultivates its viewers less than their American counterparts to see the country as a violent place. It is possible that Oxfordshire simply has less violent crime on which to report, but the differences in coverage are still rather staggering.

Are we more cultivated to believe in Mean World Syndrome than British consumers? Can we blame it all on local news stations? 

Are we cultivated to show PDA?

During my travels I have noticed that people in Europe (or at least the places I’ve gone – around the UK and Belgium) show more public displays of affection (PDA) compared to people in the States. I think that relationships in the States are similar in their levels of happiness as European relationships, so why is there more PDA in Europe?

Combing class discussion from the topics of Cultivation Theory and Media Effects from Sexual Content, I came up with a possible answer. Cultivation Theory suggests that the more media a person is exposed to, the more they cultivate similar views of the world as shown to them on television. Sexual content in media, whether on television, print ads, or online – ranges from mildly suggestive to sexually explicit. Because new forms of media are becoming more widely availed and used by younger viewers, there are social concerns about the amount of sexual content shown. 

As previous blogs have pointed out, ads and television programs in the UK and Europe have more content that leans towards the sexually explicit side of the scale than we are used to seeing in America. Personally, I have noticed that magazine covers in the UK are more revealing than covers in the US.

In London last weekend, I was handed a tabloid before I went into the tube station. I noticed that most people on the train were reading tabloids, so I started reading the one I was handed. After turning the first page, I saw an advertisement that was sexually explicit. I immediately closed the tabloid and threw it away when I got off the train. I don’t remember the name of the tabloid or what the specific advertisement was for, but I do remember the sexually explicit image and how wrong I thought it was.

It would be extremely easy for any young person to pick up one of the tabloid and be subjected to these sexually explicit images, and I’m sure they do. Young people in Europe are constantly exposed to sexually explicit images, which might cultivate them to show more PDA and act in sexually explicit ways.

Although this is only a correlation (and not causation), I think that there is some merit in these observations. I have wonder if young people would be showing as many public displays of affections if they grew up in the States, and were not consuming media with so much sexual content?

BBC Interview Tactics

     Those who know me well often always relate me to my extreme (but never embarrassing) obsession with Carrie Underwood. It's hard to explain on paper, but it's borderline unhealthy. Anyways, while on our excursion at BBC I was dying to get to Wifi and re-watch one of her interviews she did while promoting her Blown Away tour on the BBC Breakfast show. At first, there was no deeper meaning into what I was doing; I simply wanted to see if she had been in the same room where she gave her interview. However, after watching the interview tactics the British interviewers Charlie Sayt and Susanna Reid used against her, I was surprised with how blunt and gossip oriented they were.
     The main piece of the interview that caught me off guard was when they asked her to speak directly about other celebrities. Underwood mentioned how the entourage that travels with her on trips and other appearances is much smaller than other performers; they took this and ran with it. Sayt and Reit asked specifically if Eminem or Beyonce had a huge entourage that they bring to different award shows. I thought it was very odd that they would even say someone else's name, much less ask her to call someone out. You can tell how uncomfortable Underwood got with the question and wanted to avoid giving an answer.
     I feel like in the US, interviewers remain more cautious and don't always want to put people against each other for a news story. I can't think of one instance where Underwood has been asked on Good Morning America or the Today Show about someone else's image. I feel like the US sees her as sort of "America's sweetheart" so questions like this just wouldn't be acceptable.
Although this is a very small segment of the entire interview, you can get a sense of just how acceptable celebrity gossip and tabloid rumors are in the UK. No matter what, the British News wants to get an appealing story to make money. In the case of Underwood, her celebrity status uisn't as well known as it is back in the states, so coming up with an angle like this most likely made the interview more interesting to BBC's viewers.
     London is also where Underwood gave her stance on gay marriage. She does not like to talk about politics and in every interview where she has been asked for her particular views, she stays pretty neutral. However, during the same trip while having an interview with the London newspaper The Independent, Underwood finally gave the world a glimpse into her social beliefs saying, "As a married person myself, I don't know what it;s like to be told I can't marry somebody I love. I can't imagine how that must feel. I definitely think we should all have the right to love, and love publicly the people that we want to love."
     I remember when this interview was published thinking how bizarre it was that she gave her thoughts about this topic, considering it is such a debate these days. Once back in America, she told the Associated Press, "I was asked a difficult question in the last five minutes of an interview and I answered it the best way I knew how."
     I think here, she is admitting to how the London press tries to get the most news worthy an juicy stories out of their interviews, not considering the artist at hand, just like in the BBC interview. I don't belive Underwood would have ever been asked this question in an American interview, and if she would have been, I think she could have easily declined to comment and the conversation would have moved on. However, fro the tactics seen used by BBC, The independent probably would have continued asking questions until they got what they wanted out of her.
Here is the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he1BG03Do_A

The Radio Star

During my various visits to pubs or while traveling to and from London--I've gotten the chance to listen to UK radio stations. Primarily the channel know as BBC Radio 1.

BBCR1--as it's abbreviated--is kind of like a mix of Q100 meets Atlanta's Alternative 105.7 meets NPR.

Across the course of maybe fifteen minutes, you can hear Justin Timberlake's "Not a Big Thing"  and the Foo Fighter's "These Days." Jack White's "Lazaretto" and David Guetta. One story will be celebrity gossip about Stella McCartney and the prank a Radio DJ pulled about asking her to send him a pair of the tight short shorts she made for the Great Britain Olympic team. The next topic will be a "News Beat Update" on the bombings in Gaza and the plea for cease fire.

It blows my mind how such a large spectrum of content is played all on the same station. I understand that since the BBC is behind the agenda, of course serious news would be involved. But could you imagine being in Georgia listening to Ke$ha only to then transition to the DJ discussing the Ukrainian plane crash? The two just wouldn't mix in the United States.

Today in class we discussed how the younger generation is opposed to politics and actually becoming informed via news media. Yet here in the UK, they play songs or discuss topics from millenial pop culture while educating them on world crises. Why doesn't this happen back at home? I know there's an obsession with ratings and advertising desirability, but why not do a little of both? I honestly don't have an answer.

Someone in our class made a comment about how informed and mature younger kids seem around Oxford. I completely agree with them. Here you can listening to all the sensational news while also having current event updates. You're expected to know both and you literally have more channels for them.

The more time I spend abroad, the more time I sort of can't blame the international community for seeing Americans as they do. Just because they have so many more opportunities for, for lack of a better word--enlightenment? They have historical structures and prestigious universities all around that have unbelievable requirements that we as students could never imagine having to complete for more than six weeks. On multiple occasions I've heard students gawk at how intelligent residents or professors are here--so I can't help but wonder how different things could be if the simplest of changes were made.

In class we all admitted to realizing that American culture is a little bit more conservative then the one here. People are more open about things like sexuality or the consumption of alcohol. I'm not bashing our country by any means,  but just lacking to understand some aspects of my own industry. When will being informed be as popular as entertained? When will we adapt?

**WARNING** This post contains graphic content - Viewer discretion is advised.

Over the past couple of days in class, we have been discussing the effects of media violence and the reactions to disturbing or frightening media content. I found these lectures incredibly relevant when I stumbled across a CNN article. 

I was scrolling through Buzzfeed when I came across an article about the attacks in Gaza. I decided a quick skim was in order to stay up-to-date on the topic. While reading, I followed the first hyperlink I saw, as I do with all Buzzfeed articles (I like to know where they source their information from). The link to me to a CNN article about the lack of cease-fire in Gaza. As with all CNN articles these days, a video immediately began playing on the page, and without warning I was watching the corpse of a young boy be carried through a crowd.

It actually took me a minute to process what I was seeing. I had been given no warning nor even a choice to watch the scene. It was horrifying. I continued to watch the segment as it featured children talking about the boy, the explosions, the names of the dead and visual descriptions of dead bodies in the street. It also showed clips of pools of blood and what appeared to be small pieces of flesh, but what I found most disturbing was the amount of times I watched corpses of children ben hauled around. One scene in particular stood out: it shows the feet of corpse of a child being lowered on a table; the sheet the child is wrapped up in is covered in blood. I still cannot get the image out of my head.

Outraged and hoping this was not a global trend, I went on BBC.com to get a sense of how the British media was handling this issue. There were some very notable difference in how BBC handled their graphic content. First, a video did not immediately begin to play when I opened the page (much to my relief). Secondly, there was a warning, not once, but twice before he video began. The first warning is small text floating next to the play button, and the second warning comes when the video starts and includes a screen of text and an announcer stating "the following report contains some disturbing images." 

I was so delighted at the warning that I continued to watch the video. Boy, was that a mistake. I had assumed that the disturbing images would be similar to what I had seen in the CNN video (dead bodies, blood, etc.). I was dead wrong (no pun intended). The first video opens with a child screaming and crying in pain. She was being held down as her head was bandaged. I couldn't watch anymore. While the content on CNN was in fact horrifying, this struck deep within me. I was so disturbed by the first few seconds of the video that I didn't even watch the other videos on the page, warning label or not.

Trying to distract myself from what I saw, I tried to find other similar articles on CNN and BBC to compare how each entity handled graphic content. I settled on a two stories about a suicide bombing in Nigeria. Besides the obvious differences in the actual text of the articles I noticed one really, really big difference: BBC had an incredibly graphic image and CNN did not. Unlike in the last BBC article, this photo came without warning. Splashed at the top of the page was a photo of a woman looking on the crime scene of the explosion. Beyond the yellow police tape, we can see blood, and what appears to be flesh, in an explosion pattern on the ground. 

I was speechless. I just sat there staring at my computer thinking, "They are not showing me where the suicide bomber exploded.No, they can't be... OMG they did. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!" To escape this image, I jumped over to CNN to find its take on reporting this tragedy When I came across the article I was shocked, but not for the same reasons I was shocked at the BBC article. CNN's article completely lacked a photo. I pondered this for a moment because it is very unlike CNN, or any large news agency for that matter, to post an article without an accompanying photo. I thought that maybe they could not find one, but that would be highly unlikely. So, the only conclusion I could draw was that CNN intentionally left a photo out of the article, but why?

I find myself asking why a lot.
"Why would you use that clip of a dead child's body?"
"Why would you show an innocent child writhing in pain?"
"Why do you show use images of other's spilled blood?"
"WHY do you supply images of human flesh laying in the street?"
"Why don't you have more warnings?"
"Why are your warnings not specific enough?
"Why? Why? Why?"

Since this has been a topic of discussion in class this week, I found that these articles were extremely relevant and may have not been taken as seriously if I saw them at another point in time. So, I pose a two-part question to you: Why is the news media pushing these graphic images, and is it the duty of the news media to warn the viewers of the specifics of their disturbing content?

Sexual Ads in Public Areas

 I spent this previous weekend in the magical city of Paris, France. Since most of Paris's main attractions are spread apart throughout the city, my group took the metro everywhere. The metro is a prime location for advertising, and I was exposed to a lot of it while I was there. One observation I made while exploring the city was that French advertisement is meant to excite and seduce. I was alarmed to see these sexual ads in a public place. So many families with young children use the metro as a main form of transportation, and I find it disturbing that so many children are exposed to this content while using the metro. One ad that stood out to me displayed an almost naked woman and red lipstick prints in it. It was an ad for an "adult" club. Of course, there are ads in America that feature raunchy material, but they are usually located in places that children do not usually have access to. If ads do happen to be in public places that have a high traffic flow, like billboards  on the interstate that advertise "adult" clubs and "exotic" dancing, there are not pictures of women being objectified plastered on the billboards. There are only words describing the facility. Do you think media should be regulated in public places or do you think that exposing children to sexual ads early on in life helps them become more comfortable with the subject?

The Moulin Rouge Nightmare

Talking about sexual content the other day in class made me think about an experience I had in Paris this past weekend. A couple friends and I were spending some time in Montmartre and decided to visit the Moulin Rouge. We were told it was only a few blocks down the road, so we decided to walk. At first, everything was fine. Perfectly normal Parisian street lined with perfectly normal Parisian gift shops. We passed a little magazine stand in the middle of the road. Everything seemed fine to me until I realized that the magazines were covered with naked women.

Taken a little by surprise, we kept walking. After about a block, we began to pass all kinds of sex shops. Huge neon lights stuck out from tiny buildings, advertising all sorts of sexual acts and toys that could be purchased inside. Posters of naked women, lingerie-clad mannequins, and sexual advertisements covered all the windows of the stores. I felt like I was in a mini Las Vegas. It seemed like the red light district of Paris.

The sidewalk we were walking on was lined with benches, all crowded with men (literally, there was not a single woman). The number of whistles, catcalls, and vulgar things that were shouted at us in that short three-block walk to the Moulin Rouge was astounding. We decided going through the trouble of taking the metro just one stop to return us to where we started was worth not having to walk back the way we came.

In my mind, I wondered to myself if these men would behave the same way in a different context. Did being surrounded by sexualized advertisements, magazines, and other various forms of media make them behave in a way that was that degrading towards women? Or was this their normal behavior and they just put themselves in this context to make it seem more justifiable? In my personal opinion, I think it's a little of both. But it still begs the question of how much of an influence the media's content, especially sexual content, can have on the way we think and behave in society.

Sexual content in Ireland

Seeing as we discussed sexual content in class the other day it made me think about my trip to Dublin this past weekend. My companions and I stopped in a convenience store so that we could pick up a few things before heading to our hostel. I was standing by the front of the store looking over the magazines when something in the upper left corner caught my eye.

It was porn.

And when I say porn, I mean more than your average Playboy magazine, it was just straight on nudity, in the middle of a little convenience store in Dublin. I was shocked, I even called one of my friends over to make sure what I was seeing is actually real. I know that sex can sell but to see that in the middle of the day was to say the least a huge alarm.

Even though they are more liberal about many things over here than we are in the states, I still can't believe that they wouldn't at least censor these magazines slightly as they do with the magazines that are openly sold in the states, simply because they are in public where children have access to them rather easily. There should be more barriers so that children's wandering eyes don't find something that could be mentally disturbing.

I feel like what sexual material is being thrown out there, whether it be here or in the states, should undergo more censorship. If I were a parent living in Ireland or here in the UK and my children were seeing those kinds of things very blatantly on the magazine shelves, I would be extremely distraught from that exposure.

Scandal Coverage in the Media

When traveling in London with my family, we began our days watching the morning show “Breakfast” on BBC. We got regular updates on the weather and Tube conditions for that particular day, as well as other recurring updates on local stories and events. One such story followed the trial of Rolf Harris, a prominent artist and television personality. Harris was accused in March of molesting a string of young girls and women. Thanks to both generation and culture gaps, I didn't recognize Harris by name or face, but I still found myself following the coverage of his trial from day to day. Several news outlets reported the allegations when they first came to light in late March, but most of the coverage took place during the duration of his trial. Even trial coverage was done so with a large degree of discretion; The Guardian simply provided verbatim transcripts of testified statements with little journalistic commentary. The coverage was typically limited to several minutes of on-air updates, and a few days it was not discussed at all.

One particular segment on the BBC morning show invited journalists to share their opinions about media coverage cases of this nature receive. One journalist raised the typical concern of ruining the alleged criminals’ names no matter the sentence received in court, but another contributor argued that British media does not give cases of this nature enough attention. He believed that more women would have the courage to stand up against the offenders if they are more aware of the case through the media.

During a conversation I had with one of our Oxford Dons at the high table reception last week, we discussed Rolf Harris’ case, and she was surprised to hear that American media often gives even more attention to cases like this than British media does. She argued that by focusing so strongly on the alleged criminals before the case has gone to court, the media gives victims (in this case women) the power to ruin a man’s name with little to no legitimate evidence. I found this to be an interesting example of the differences in framing between American and British media. The coverage of Harris’ case that I encountered seemed to try to eliminate the effects of journalistic influence on the story, both in the amount of coverage and how they covered it, more so than American media typically does. 

Sharing News

Watching the Sunday morning news programs on the BBC reinforces some conversations we had at the Financial Times and later in class.  In London, print newspapers are quite important.  In the U.S. we talk all too often about their growing irrelevance, but not in London.  On both BBC Breakfast and The Andrew Marr Show -- Sunday morning news talk shows -- the hosts and commentators from various spheres of expertise opine on reports from The Times, The Guardian, The Mail, et cetera.  It's an example of media feeding media.  It's one medium extending the reach and content of another.


Host Andrew Marr (right) talks about the news of the day, as covered by London newspapers, with guests on his Sunday morning news and talk show.

Are we Desensitized?

This weekend has been a particularly awful weekend as far as international conflict goes. As we probably all know, on Thursday the 17th, a commercial airliner was shot down over Ukraine. In addition, fighting again has erupted in the Gaza Strip. According to The Independent at least 222 Palestinians and 1 Israeli had been killed, and nearly 77 percent of the deceased are civilians.

The hostel I was staying in this weekend had the news on Friday and Saturday morning, so I heard all about it. There were stories about the victims in the airliner shooting, and stories about a family that just missed the flight, and thus had their lives saved.

To be honest, I wasn't moved to any of the emotions I would have liked to be moved to. Sure, when I took some time to really think about what had happened, I was struck. When I saw the Palestinian protests in London, the gravity of what was happening definitely hit me. But I wish I had been emotionally moved quicker, because between the two incidents, over 500 people had died. I was able to pretty easily distract myself by reading my book. Is that okay?

I think that constant exposure to negative media (which is really just a product of constant exposure to a negative world) has desensitized me a bit. Maybe it's desensitized us all.

What are we supposed to do with this? Obviously, we need to know about what is happening in the Gaza Strip and how Flight MH17 was shot down. We can't address these tragedies as a society if the media doesn't communicate the gravity of them to us. But tragedy has kind of become white noise because it's constantly being communicated, and isn't it harder to react to a tragedy when it's just part of a constant stream of tragedies?

I think of the movie Hotel Rwanda, when Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) asks a reporter if people will help Rwanda when they see his footage of the murders. The reporter responds by saying something along the lines of "People will be eating dinner, see this on their TVs and say 'Oh, that's really terrible,' and then they'll go back to eating their dinner."

So, what's the answer to this? I think it's up to me to be a more attentive news watcher, processing the gravity of the tragedies as much as possible, thinking critically about the implications of these tragedies, and actually thinking about if we can do anything about the tragedy. It's unfortunately easier said than done, but it's better than just letting tragedy fade into the background.

heat & Closer: looking at two British tabloids

As I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things I decided that it was past time that I pick up one of the many British tabloids. Seeing as I wanted to spend as little money as possible I decided to pick up a packaged magazine that came with two different tabloids in it called heat and Closer.

I first looked at heat and at first glance I noticed how much attention these tabloids give to not only their own celebrities but to our own celebrities as well, especially since many of our celebrities intersect each other such as David and Victoria Beckham who had a large story in the first few pages of both of the magazines. There was even a section within heat called "GOSSIP with an American accent" that solely focused on major headlines from celebrities in the states.

Closer on the other hand seemed to just focus mainly on British figures and many of its stories seemed to be based on speculation and very little, if any, fact. The language that it is written in just gives the effect that there are not too many reliable sources within its content.

heat had a rather large headline about Victoria Beckham with five smaller headlines surrounding it and Closer had just a a cluster of smaller headlines, which shows a difference in the style of the tabloids here as the majority of tabloids in the U.S. usually have one large headline instead of a few smaller ones.

There also seems to be a disconnect between the two tabloids as well, as I suspect there is between all of the British gossip magazines. In heat there was a story about Victoria Beckham being too stressed out and not making time for David, while Closer delivered a different story on the two saying it is David who is too busy. While this is only a small difference in the story lines between the two publications it still shows how the goal of the magazines is to sell headlines and not content. They want to sell as many magazines as possible with attractive content while back in the states the goal is to not only sell but to have coherent information across the board.

It is interesting to see how the celebrity culture is so different here than it is back home because I feel like here they can say just about anything on their cover or within the pages of their magazine and people would believe what they are saying without much background.

Fashion Blogging in the UK

Before I left for Oxford, I asked my girlfriend who came last year what I should pack. Her response was “Not much, you will definitely want to do shopping!” I took her advice and came with a couple of staples, not nearly enough to last through two weeks with hopes of adding some new statement pieces to my wardrobe. When I got here, I was utterly surprised on how different the fashion trends were and how much I could not ration out the pounds in order or purchase a dress that is NOT my style. After wearing the same t-shirt, three days in a row, I came to the conclusion that I should probably do a little fashion research while I am here and apply it to advertising.

In class we have discussed the effects of social media several times, but I have yet to apply it to the newest form of advertising. Being a fashion guru, I follow several fashion bloggers on instagram to stay relevant and check up on the recent trends and find inspiration through the unique and creative outfit combinations. Brands today will give the successful fashion bloggers products from cosmetics, handbags and accessories, full ensembles, all the way to restaurant cards, movie premieres, and hotel stays in hopes that this 21-year-old girl will post an instagram photo of the fabulous meal she had in a specific restaurant or a view from the W’s rooftop pool and lounge with a positive caption and geo-tag. If the brand is really lucky, maybe she will dedicate an entire blog entry on an experience and not just a tweet.

I was interested to see if fashion bloggers in the UK were as prevalent as fashion bloggers in the United States, and if so, who are these bloggers who set the stage for what’s hot and what’s not!? I picked the August 2014 version of Company Magazine, which is a magazine that we do not have in the states. Featured on this colorful cover is an American actress, Ashley Benson. This month's issues cover the “Summer Fashion Special” and “It’s the Ibiza Issue.” Figuring out just how social media savvy the UK fashion world is was quite easy when the front cover states “Ashley Benson, our fave actress on Instagram (4 million agree!).” Also, flipping through the magazine, I saw multiple hashtags, references to twitter, instagram, and facebook. There was even an article called “Confessions of a Blogger's Boyfriend” and a feature on Lucy Rance who is a blogger for Lulutrixabelle.com. Now that I determined fashion bloggers who are predominant in the UK, I did some research.

An Internet search brought me to the Top 15 Fashion Bloggers in the UK and the Top 15 Fashion Bloggers in the United States. I was shocked to see that a good portion of the fashion bloggers that ranked highest on the charts in the US actually came from London and major US cities. On the other hand, the top UK Fashion bloggers all came from the UK or other European countries. What I can conclude from the lack of American influence on UK Blogs, and the obscene amount of Americans following European blogs: America is lacking on setting the fashion agenda.

It appears that European countries are ahead of all the new trends; clothes, shoes, accessories, food, travel, and much more. In advertising, it is imperative to stay on the cutting edge and be the first to do something before competitors. When working on building a brand's image, or reinventing a brand, I will not be hesitant to look for European influence and use their styles and inventiveness to bring back to the United States.

It turns out maybe I should get shopping while I am abroad; the trends are soon to explode in the US of A.

"How to Spend It" and the discussion of agenda setting

During the beginning of our class Q&A session at the Financial Times, one of our classmates (I can't seem to remember whom) asked Editor Chris Grimes about whether he believed the media sets an agenda for the public or vice versa. It was an interesting question because we as a class had posed the same question the day earlier, yet Mr. Grimes had a hard time answering it. (He argued for both stances.) Personally, I assumed he would answer the question by saying that the UK public "determines" what the FT publishes. As a publication based upon financial roots I feel as if editors like Mr. Grimes reach out into the public for stories to publish. It is in their interest to examine who is spending money, on what, and where that money is going and then to turn that around and build a story.

Yet after seeing the "How to Spend It" weekly supplement I retracted my thought and considered whether maybe ads and supplements like this one are doing the agenda setting? So after further reviewing this glossy supplement and all of its columns on lavish goods and international travel, I settled for a position on the question. I now believe the media sets the agenda for its public. A number of columns in "How to Spend it" literally instruct the reader where and how to spend quantities of money. It's rare to see even a customer review on these recommendations they are giving to the readers. I think it might be easier to set such an agenda in London because it is obviously an economically thriving city. But that shows that in order to answer the question of "who sets the agenda: media or the public?" one would have to count socioeconomic and a slew of other factors into such a debate.     

Conflicting Language

Before choosing Oxford as my destination for studying abroad this summer, I looked at numerous program options. I'm not going to lie to you, one of the prominent reasons for favoring the UK is the fact they speak English. Foreign language has not been my particular forte, and I didn't want to try and juggle a language barrier along with sightseeing and school work. However, communicating with British natives has not been the piece of cake I assumed it would be.

Though we all speak the same language, it doesn't mean we have the same culture. Of course I knew before traveling abroad that though similar, the US and UK are not the same. After all I am an avid consumer of Doctor Who, Sherlock, and just about any program stamped with the seal of BBC. That should have given me a clear enough picture of British culture, right? Just Kidding. Even though I prepared for a bit of culture shock, the one thing I didn't really consider is the use of various slang. (Fun Fact: I still have not heard one person refer to the restroom as "the Loo" in almost two weeks of being here. I'm kind of disappointed by this.)

The best example of this miscommunication can be taken from our first Sunday cookout dinner at the college. Two university girls working for the summer were stationed at the drink table. As a group of friends and I approached, they informed us our options were water, orange squash or cranberry squash. The group of us looked slightly horrified as we quickly expressed desire for only the water. How odd must the British people be to serve squash as a drink! As I was preparing to walk away, one of the British girls asked me if we didn't have squash in America. Baffled, I told her we did but usually only ate it in vegetable form and not liquidated. After a moment of deep confusion the girl burst into laughter and said, "Oh, no! It's only flavored water! No wonder you whole lot were looking at us as if we're insane." So my first lesson learned in England is that "squash" basically equals Crystal Light.

It still bewilders me that the comprehension of one word can change the entire meaning of a conversation. Just because a word or phrase has a contrived meaning to me doesn't mean it's the same for everybody else. This conversation truly reminded me of the fact that all media specialists have to understand their target audience before crafting a message. It's easy for meanings to get lost behind words especially across cultures.

This idea plays significantly into what our class discussed while on an excursion to The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine last Tuesday. Their current vaccination campaign is tasked with making sure people on a global scale are getting vaccinated for various diseases in order to prevent outbreaks across the world. Never before did I realize how daunting of a challenge this could prove to be. Growing up in such a privileged country, immunizations have been something I've grown up with. Every fall, the majority of us rush to get our flu shots, fearing the time getting sick would take out of our busy lives. This trend does not hold true for all people globally, even some within our own country. There are religious objections, trust issues, other concerns that are more prevalent, and more. With a situation like vaccination, it is crucial to understand all colloquialisms of the targeted audience, because messaging is key. The way information is presented can truly control successful campaign or a flop.

Every once and a while it's nice to have a blunt reminder that not all people think similarly. I look forward to being able to take my newfound awareness and apply it as I go forward, whether it's talking to a local on a street corner or crafting a post in my future career.

One Tweet Can Make a Difference

This past year I was the Social Media Coordinator for a University of Georgia campus magazine called InfUSion. InfUSion Magazine was started in 1989 in the Office of Multicultural Services and Programs (MSP) and was the first multicultural student-run magazine at UGA.

Working as a staff member of this magazine has opened my eyes to the impact that social media can have on news publications (big and small). Upon coming to the UK and taking part in the UGA at Oxford program, I became interested in the UK’s use of social media, and how it differed from social media use of publications in the United States.

Like Erin said in her post, one of the first things I did when I got to Trinity College (after taking a nap, of course) was following BBC on twitter. And after researching the Financial Times for our first excursion, I followed them as well.

Right away, I noticed a few differences in the way that these two UK news outlets used social media (specifically twitter) compared to American outlets. The FT and BBC had shorter tweets that were more direct. They didn’t use all of the characters afforded to them, and they don’t allow social media to set their agenda. For these media outlets, social media is just a tool used to direct information seekers to their website.

When we toured the Financial Times on our excursion, Christopher Grimes, a Grady College alumnus, mentioned the same idea. At the FT, their goal in using social media was to draw in readers to their website, not act as a replacement for their website. Grimes mentioned posting a funny Vine video on Facebook and Twitter for people to share with friends and followers. But the overall goal of that video was not purely entertainment; the goal was to inform the public about their publication and how they can read a columnist’s story one day early.

From what I have seen American news outlets use social media a little differently. First off, some American media organizations give the whole story away in their tweets. Readers aren’t clicking through to their websites, and they aren’t receiving other news updates. Secondly, these outlets typically have more sensational tweets, and more tweets purely for entertainment, which take away from their informative tweets. The public, not the media organizations, sets the agenda that produces these sensational entertainment tweets.

But that is not to say everything American news outlets do on social media is wrong or bad. There are many similarities between the more reputable news sources in the US and the UK news sources I have seen on Twitter. I’m sure I can also find UK new outlets that tweet sensational news, like the United States. Across the board, media organizations can learn from the FT and BBC, as well as the Associated Press, about how to best use social media.  

When looking at social media use by media organizations, I think the two most important topics to consider are agenda setting and framing. Media organizations need to make sure that they are getting their messages across correctly, which can be difficult with 140 characters or less. When communication isn’t interpersonal things can easily be misinterpreted. These outlets need to make sure that they are properly framing their messages, and interacting with their publics, so that if something is misunderstood it doesn’t get blown out of proportion. One tweet can make a lot of impact.

Excursion 1

Chris Grimes gives Grady at Oxford students a look at the substantial news operation at the Financial Times.

Tuesday we took the first of two planned excursions to London.  We visited the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and heard from Drs. Heidi Larson and Pauline Paterson about how they monitor media worldwide to try and identify attitude trends about vaccines.  Their project, The Vaccine Confidence Index, is funded primarily by the Gates Foundation.  Their work is shared with the World Health Organization and the United Nations among others so they can nip problems in the bud before epidemics arise because of lack of vaccination.  The Vaccine Confidence Index project hosted us for a good lunch of salads, fish and fruit.

We then went to The Financial Times where we were met by Chris Grimes, Analysis Editor for the FT.  Grimes is a 1992 Grady alumnus who began his career at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, then went to New York to join the Dow Jones news organization eventually joining The Financial Times in New York.  He has been working in London for three years.

There is NO such thing as Good Sweat...

It has come to my attention the importance of producing advertisements that resonate with a specific culture. Out of curiosity, I picked up a tabloid magazine at the newsstand called “Ok!.” The United States has several versions of this magazine in the form of “People” or “E News.”

Flipping through the pages, a couple advertisements caught my eye. The first one that really piqued my interest was an ad for Mitchum Ultimate which is a deodorant brand. The information given about the brand shows that it protects for 48 hours and it contains ‘revolutionary Oxygen Odour Control Technology that targets and destroys odour, neutralizing it all.’ Therefore, we should all switch to Michum.

However, the more interesting portion of the advertisement shows a picture of four friends; two boys and two girls. They are about 21-25 years old, attractive, and all very different looking. It is nighttime and it looks like there is a concert going on in the background of the low quality picture. You can assume that the people in the picture are smiling and having a great time from the “selfie” that is the image. The layout of the print ad looks like an instagram post from ‘Laura’ where she geo-tagged the location as “London” and the caption is “Good Sweat is a night out with the crew. #Goodsweat”. Then, the tagline of the ad states, “Great moments in life make you sweat. Share them.”

Now, from what I know about American women, I would say none of us would be turned on to the idea of sweating. American deodorants are mainly antiperspirants and the concept of sweating is not acceptable among younger populations. American women even go to the extreme in removing their sweat gland from their armpits to avoid sweating all together. To make a long story short, this advertisement would not be successful in the U.S. but the campaign is quite successful in the UK. According to a study done in 2012 by the International Conference on Communication, Media, Technology and Design, research proves that advertising is linked with societal norms. 

In the United States, the product equivalent is Secret Deodorant and Antiperspirant  which is currently using a hashtag campaign as well. Instead of instagram, the brand shares its new scents through videos that feature a different scent inspired by a different designation such as Paris, Brazil, and Hawaii. The words used to sell the product are quite different from Michum's hashtag of GoodSweat. Secret is using #Epic48 Hour Adventures and words like "Gorgeous" to describe how the product makes the females feel. This is a very simple example of how a subtle difference in word choices that would resonate with a target audience among a different culture. 

Long Live the Print

Ever since my first experience with journalism in high school, I've been told that print is a dying breed. Even though I spent years being the editor of the school's newspaper, I eventually stepped back from the field and decided to pursue a career in advertising at The University of Georgia. Certainly with the boom of social media and technology, words on a screen would eventually outlive anything on paper. Especially with interactive, banner, and all other digital ads we see in our media classes.Yesterday however, our excursion to The Financial Times (FT) in London gave me a massive reality check. Print is NOT dead.

Christopher Grimes, a 1992 UGA alumni (forgive me if I've got the year wrong) greeted us at the security gates of the building. He was younger than I imagined and well dressed in a grey suit. No tie. I thought this was odd because when I knew we were going to a big business newspaper like the FT, I thought certainly the atmosphere would be overly professional and even a little stuffy. But there Mr. Grimes was, happily greeting us and excited to give us the tour.

Our first stop was a large conference room where Mr. Grimes gave us a brief overview of his position at the FT. He's in charge of the large feature piece found in the middle of the newspaper. He and his higher editors determine what the topic on the insert will be based upon their perceptions of importance. As we all obviously know, this is the epitome of gate keeping and agenda setting. What I don't think we all realized however, was how close to a deadline decisions like these are made. Mr. Grimes provided us with a specific example of how six hours before a deadline his head editor decided that he wanted to cover a specific topic about Mexico. Thus an avalanche of necessity was triggered where the general Latin American reporter and Mexican correspondent needed to be contacted in order to crank out a piece right before the morning's publication. Mr. Grimes described how one floor of the building could go from complete calm and boredom (like how I thought it would be) to a chaotic and adrenaline motivated war zone.

This blew my mind. I couldn't believe how tight their deadlines could be. Especially considering how many drafts or versions an advertisement can go through before it's even considered.  So much effort goes into one publication that is from an industry that's allegedly "barely hanging on." But certainly something so stressful must have some sort of a pay off if people are still keeping it around. To be frank, I was asking myself were the money was. Why stay in this industry?

My question was immediately answered while in the same conference room. Mr. Grimes went on to tell our class that a yearly subscription to The Financial Times costs roughly $350. Yet another mind bomb. But wait, there's more--Mr. Grimes literally threw down multiple copies of the FT's affiliate magazine called How to Spend It. This ungodly large glossy magazine featured advertisements from Louis Vuitton, Maserati, and Michelin-Star restaurants. Earlier today I looked up just how much such an ad would cost. According to the current rate card, a double page colored ad can cost up to $103,000 at the most and $49,000 at the least.

Let this blog post serve as a retraction. About my original judgement of how the atmosphere of a business magazine would be, and for anyone who claims that newspaper is extinct. Reign on FT. And long live the print.

BBC and Ownership

When I got in front of a computer after arriving in Oxford, one of the first things I did was get on Twitter and follow BBC. I suspect I'm not the only one who did this. Like lots of people my age (or not my age), I get much of my news online. Although it's not entirely rational, I've been surprised by how similar British news coverage has seemed so far to American news coverage. Especially in the form of a tweet, the common elements are obvious: brief lede explaining the gist of the story followed by a link to an article. Clicking through, you can recognize an inverted pyramid style of writing, a careful citing of sources, a clear attempt toward impartiality -- all hallmarks of American journalism.

Looking at BBC's Twitter and website got me thinking, though, about an American equivalent. The obvious answer might be something like CNN, being a major national news network, but the comparison that's most readily come to mind for me is actually the Associated Press. Like the AP, BBC manages separate accounts for news categories like world news and sports. And maybe it's the journalist or the anti-capitalist in me, but the first source I would think of as thorough and unbiased is the Associated Press. That brings up, of course, a key difference between the AP and other news sources like CNN or Fox or even the New York Times. When we want news from CNN, we visit CNN.com. AP's website? AP.org. Sure, the organization is owned by news companies. But it remains a nonprofit organization. And I think that's part of the reason for what may be a more implicit trust on my part of news from the Associated Press.

Unlike CNN or Fox or MSNBC, BBC is not, in the traditional sense of the term, a business. Also unlike any news stations in the United States, BBC is funded by the government. I know we've discussed some of the risks of receiving the news from a government-funded organization, but is that any worse than relying on for-profit companies to tell us what's happening? A lot of Americans have no idea just how tangled our web of media ownership is. It still seems crazy to me sometimes that someone let Disney buy ABC. Surely there have been some conflicts of interest since then. Meanwhile, BBC is in the midst of reporting a government abuse scandal. Do we take everything at its word -- at least as much as we would do if it weren't a story on the government? Is it better to have a media that is largely for-profit or a media that is largely funded by the government? And does it make an actual difference in day-to-day reporting?

The Anorak Newspaper

Today I glanced around at some of the UK's online publications. I wasn't actually sure which publications were credible and which weren't so I settled on a newspaper called the Anorak (mostly because its font and color scheme online reminded me of the A.P.) I'll note that I REALLY did try to find something positive I could talk about when describing this publication but with it's poor layout and even poorer writing that was near impossible.

A quick list of some things that bothered me from the Anorak: the use of abbreviations in important news stories (exp: lol, the Feds...), editorializing content with words like "sadly" and "luckily", use of casual terms like "folks", the scattered layout is not user-friendly, and lastly some of the reporters even signed off their articles with "Hurrah!" But most horrifying, to me, was the link on their homepage labeled "flashback" that directed readers to a blog of sorts that I can only describe as a wannabe Buzzfeed (only with less interesting stories). Not sure why such a trivial link would be posted as their main content on the home page....

I wont categorize every UK publication as being this poor in content, but I have seen multiple British publications report their content in the same manner. (I recognize the BBC and a few others have adequate reporting)

After we discussed the social cognitive theory in class, I wondered if British citizens are modeling their general or even political views after these biased reporters. Why hasn't there been a movement to improve mass media in this country? What are journalistic standards for writers in the UK and how come competition hasn't fostered more credible reporting?

The Daily Fail (I mean Mail)

This past Thursday and Friday, my romantic literature class went on our excursion up to the Lake District. On the way up there, Lauren and I decided to split the cost of a newspaper. We settled on a copy of The Guardian, but the only reason that we knew it was a reputable newspaper was because last year, I had heard that The Guardian was the publication that had broken the Snowden story. If I had not known that, I might have passed right over newspaper, thinking it was just a worthless tabloid.

After purchasing the paper, we sat down next to Dr. Camilleri. When she noticed that we had bought the paper and we explained to her that we were keeping up with British news for the sake of our Grady Seminar, then she started to list off other reputable news sources that we could go to. She obviously named The BBC, but she also mentioned The Daily Mail and The Huffington Post, which was surprising to us.

Most of us at the table clearly had negative perceptions of those two papers. The only time that any of us had encountered either of those news sources was when they showed up on our Facebook feeds in the form of gossipy entertainment articles or overly-opinionated opinion pieces.

Now, obviously Facebook filters out what it puts on our feeds. All the time I spend reading buzzfeed articles might lead Facebook's program to think I want to have those opinion pieces promoted on my feed; or perhaps one of my friends just might think the 350th opinion piece on marriage that the read was absolutely the one that they needed to share. However, Facebook's programming and my friends' inclinations are another conversation for another time. The thing that I realized in this conversation with Dr. Camilleri is that the context in which I am presented with a news source greatly affects my opinion of that news source.

The fact that every Huffington Post piece I read was an opinion piece shared by some guy from my high school caused me to read it with a grain of salt, especially if I didn't agree with the opinion. But, I read an article from The Guardian that I didn't agree with and I gave that article a thorough read, finding myself open to the comments, because my preconceived notion of the publication was that it was very reputable.

It's clearly to the disadvantage of The Daily Mail and The Huffington Post to be shared on social media so liberally, or at least, it's a disadvantage when they're trying to gain me as a reader. However, should it be this way? They can't necessarily control where they are shared, and a censorship of their Facebook trending material would likely lose the publication a lot of readers. So what is the answer - or do they even need one? That is my question.

First Class in Oxford

The Grady at Oxford Social Effects of Mass Communication class met for the first time on Tuesday, July 8.  We're starting on an adventure of learning about British media and how media affects human behavior and attitudes.  The class is: (back row l to r:) Nia Washington, Ashton Adams, Sara LaChapelle, Nicole Castrellon, Pat Semanie, Ethan Williams, Lauren Gourley, Lauren McDonald; (front row l to r:) Katie Huffman, Brittany Futch, Caroline Erickson, Kaitlyn Peel, Ashlyn Skaar, Tori McKenney, Sara Adams, Erin Cavalli.