We media and democracy

Over the summer we had to research the media and democracy within the media. This is so we could reflect on the ways that we access and look at news. Also it was for us to think about was whether the ways we were accessing media were trusted. We have since then looked at the sub types of news myself and others tend to be more interested in and how others access news, additionally how often they look at it. These are the results of research I carried out and conclusions we can draw from them.

In the ‘my news’ section of the BBC News app it allows you to pick which news categories you want to read and hear about first. In this section I chose to look at; Derby, football, cricket, music, television and media. This shows a quite wide variety of topics.  However I think it also portrays that I do not pay much attention or interest to political or international matters. However as I have the Derby section within my categories, this could show that I take an interest in local matters and news. I tend to check the news about once a day on average. It is also important to make sure the news that you are reading is legitimate. So the ways you access media is from trustworthy source. For example the institutes I trust are BBC, ITV and official Facebook pages.

My results are different to others however. For example in my research into other people’s media I found that one person finds their news from social media, newspapers, radio and online. This shows some more traditional methods of viewing news stories. As not as many people will read newspapers to read about the news, especially the younger generation who are more technologically gifted. One of the people was 41 years of age, their chosen categories to read about were Education, Brexit, Syrian Civil War and migrant crisis. 5 of the stories he knew about were; grammar schools being put into place in the UK, Donald Trump vs Hilary Clinton and also the Colombian peace deal. Another thing that was different to my results were than this person checked the news 5/6 times a day. They also read more than the headline often as opposed to me only sometimes reading more than the headline. Compared to me they also collected their news from a range of different places, these were; BBC, Radio 4 (generally not a radio station that younger people listen to), channel 4 and also The Guardian. This person also said that they trust all of these institutions and also trust The Financial Times. I think that these results are very different because of the age difference between me and the other person I asked for their opinions. As they were essentially looking at more important world topics. If you compare two, one was about Theresa May wanting to introduce more grammar schools into Britain. Whereas one of the stories I read was about Ryan Sidebottom signing a new 1 year contract at Yorkshire County Cricket Club. This shows that the other person is older and has more of an opinion of world and national matters.

I do not think that it is a bad thing that the more traditional ways of accessing news such as newspapers are becoming less popular compared to online news apps and websites. I think this because you are essentially reading yesterday’s news with newspapers as they get printed and dispatched mostly throughout the night. Where as with apps and websites you can be kept right up to date with news as it happens and lets you see breaking news. Which I think is better as you are better and more quickly informed. This is another reason why the media now is more democratic than it used to be. This backs up Dan Gilmor’s theory on we the media

I also think that the media has changed in a different way through advancements in technology. In the sense that before it would be a journalist who would get the first story on a case. Nowadays it could be any random person who is passing by where a story could potentially occur. I think that this is also a good development in media as stories will be less farfetched and fantasize cases. This is another point to back up Dan Gilmors theories in we the media.

Overall I think that the media on the whole has become more democratic. I think this because people have made ways to make news more accessible. Whether this be by blogs, apps, websites or social media. It is also now easier to make your own news, by videoing or commenting on a certain event. So it is not just the big media companies that can be the first source of the news headlines, it can now be any person. I also think that it is younger people who are accessing the more modern ways to view the news such as online newspapers, apps and websites. Where as older people who still use the more traditional ways to access the news that they want to, such as newspapers, news channels, radios etc. This could be the because they are more set in their ways and do not want to change the way they view the news themselves.