LO2: Task four Presentation of heirarchal awareness.

This hierarchy diagram is based on my understanding of a newspaper company therefore all of the positions would be relative to that certain a structure.

The first position I have included in my diagram would be the chief executive of the company. This is the highest position in the company and are therefore responsible for overseeing all of the major decisions that the shareholders decide are worthy of discussion however unlike any other shareholder the chief executive has the power to veto any decision as that they are the owner of the largest part of the company.

After this I have put the managing director as well as city, sports, front page and special sections editors. The managing director is in charge of making sure that any story that will be featured in the newspaper is suitable for publication as that this is an imposable task to do alone they choose to delegate their role to other editors only handling cases that they are unsure of  and overseeing all editorial boards.

Due to the fact that there is no way to be a journalist and not a reporter in a newspaper i have chosen to include them together however in another journalistic platform the difference in job role would be that the journalist is responsible for compiling information and writing a story based on it and the reporter presents that story. The information for this story may be found by either a researcher or a journalist depending on the size of the organisation.

LO2: Task three - Carrer pathway reaserch

there are many different types of journalistic work that are available to people. Below I have elaborated on some of these:

a)Independent (e.g freelance, self-employment etc)

1) Freelance work:
A freelance job would involve a journalist applying for specific contracts from a business and doing them for a fee. This would require the writer to be extremely versatile in terms of their writing style, mode of address and restrictive/ elaborate coding. However it gives the journalist much more freedom to explore different types of news reporting so that they may , if they choose, go into that style.
This also benefits large news outlets as that it means that they don't have to pay for full time members of staff or offer the same benefits that a full time contract would come wit (for example a freelance writer would not legally have to be paid for their labor if they do not complete the work correctly.

2) Self employment:
In the internet age it is far easier thin ever to become an independent journalist with people like Dan Gilmore pioneering so called "citizen journalism." There is a large amount of risk associated with becoming self employed however and it is completely up to the individual to make sure that they are making enough money to live on.
All that is required to become a self employed journalist is a website or somewhere to print your articles. However due to the risk associated with this line of work it would be required for the individual to conduct large amounts of research on the platforms that they are using to distribute their work and the audience they are trying to reach.

https://www.upwork.com/o/jobs/browse/skill/journalism-writing/ - This website hosts several freelance journalism jobs and offers money for their completion.

      

b)Voluntary sector

It is common to work on a voluntary basis in journalism as that it is a very crowded sector of work. many people choose to work voluntarily so that they can gain relevant experience that will benefit them in getting a paid vocation later on in life.

Personally I feel that the voluntary sector would be the most open to me at this point in time as that I am not qualified to be a writer professionally and therefore I would have to do work unpaid in order to build up a resume for myself, potentially meaning that I could use the work I have done there when I am trying to get a job in a real publication.

c)Employment

There are many different institutions that require journalists to work for them. For example Newspapers, magazines, any kind of news television network and news websites.
Journalists are very important components of these businesses and therefore they always make sure that they are always mostly or fully staffed.

Due to what I have stated above it is obviously very difficult to become a professional journalist at this point in time. This means that I would ha

d)Work based training

Work based training would be where an aspiring writer would learn from one who has been employed for a while and gaining knowledge for a future role.

e)Further education

This would entail going to a collage or school that covers some kind of journalism course. This would build up a base understanding of the subject so that it would be possible to do a higher role. 

f)Higher education

This would be the process of going to a university and gaining a degree in journalism as to 

LO2: Task two: job roles in a chosen sector.

I have chosen to show the roles performed by a journalist in this task:

Practical and technical skills:

An average journalist would have to be familiar with different types of writing so that their work can be targeted towards a particular audience, This could include the usage of restrictive and elaborate coding or the interchanging use of the three modes of address.  They would also have to be confident in terms of approach people and to critical analyse what people are saying/ writing.
In terms of technical skills a journalist would have to be familiar with the software used to produce text professionally. As well as this depending on what they are trying to gain information on they would also have to make sure that they are skilled in using the Internet to research a story.

Specific industry knowledge:   

A Journalist would have to be aware of the industry they are working in, producing content that would suit the publication they are working for. For example if the journalist was working for a music publication then that is what they would create content for as opposed to political or social writing.
This means they would have to have a good understanding of the codes and conventions of the publication which they write for.

Communication skills – oral and written:

Due to the nature of the role of a journalist it is vital that they have the communication skills in order to approach people to find more information which they need to present their story. This requires a great deal of self confidence and a person that is capable of behaving in a professional way as that they will be representing an organisation. 
 as well as this they need to be a competent writer so that the findings they gain from a story can be accurately recounted and presented to a viewer/ reader. 


Organisation
a journalist would need to be able to organise different events for their stories. For example it would be up to them to contact people for an interview. 

Creativity

            A journalist would need to ensure that they can write or present stories in a way that will be able to engage their target audience and make them interested in it. As well as this a journalist would be responsible for deciding the mode of address of the article creating a tone/ atmosphere for their work. Therefore, it is important that a journalist can decide how they want to portray their story

Problem solving
A Journalist would also need to work their way around obsticals  in order to reach their end goal.  this may include not having access to a particular person or location thus prohibiting their access to a story. The Journalist would be required to find someone who could accurately recount events that have taken place while ensuring that they are not ,without trying, giving an biased view. As well as this they may have to cover stories very quickly so that the public have immediate access to them this may mea giving up personal time in order to do their job. 

Working as part of a team
 A journalist would need to be able to work with other people in situations where the story which they are trying to cover requires several different people investigating various aspects. This team would need to know what their specific roles are so that the end result is a story that is accurate and encapsulates the whole situation. 
Due to the fact that there are so many different kinds of  journalists this team would likely all be responsible for different aspects of the gathering of information (photo- journalist for photography, reporter for interviewing people etc.)  

Why I would be suted for this job role?

I feel that I would be suited to the role of journalist as that I have shown in my work that I am capable   of writing in different styles (my Magazine and newspaper article from unit 7 and 3) 

  

LO2, Task one: Job roles and skills.

LO1 Cross Media product case study

Cross Media Product Case Study.

Product used- "Deadpool"

In 2016 20th century fox released "Deadpool" an adaption of a successful comedic comic book series. 

1) How was the product cross- promoted on different platforms?

    Deadpool is now known for it innovative online marketing however it is clear that this could not be the only way that they attempted to appeal to their target demographic. Being a dark humor film the production company approached the usual cross promotion targets (film magazines, etc) however the company also met with slightly more abstract companies for example a US Television show Called "The Bachelor" ran two Public service announcements from the lead character of the film explaining to men and women how to check themselves for breast/ testicular cancer (I have embedded one of these videos below.) as well as this deadpool worked with Manchester United football club to produce a short video entitled "Dreaming of Manchester United" in which Deadpool dreams of scoring a vital penalty for Manchester United and then celebrating with the team. 

    The reason for the production company of Deadpool partaking in such abstract advertising campaigns (I Believe) is a perfect understanding of the way that the audience of the film (typically men between the ages of 16- 35) consume online media and how they can use this to promote the film. It is common for people of the audience i have just described to consume "Memes" on the internet (an online joke) and the producers of Deadpool clearly understood that if they could make people associate Deadpool as a product that is up to date with the way that people consume media online then they would be much more likely to watch it. 

Another example of cross promotion in the case of deadpool was their involvement in a company callled "Lut Crate" whch describes itself as "the #1 Mystery subscription box for gamers and nerds." This company makes a profit by charging subscribers to have a box full of items pertaining to a certain theme (in deadpools case the months them'e was "dead" and the box contained items relating to other brands with this theme such as the walking dead. This example was effective, i beleve because it helped to keep the idea of the film in peoples minds particually the minds of the target audiance who are likely the "Gamers and nerds" being discussed here. I have included an image of the crate below.  

The above mentioned "dead" themed Lut crate

Other examples of cross promotion for Deadpool: 

2) How was the product marketed and distributed?

A screenshot of the spoof newsletter

Deadpool has become infamous for it's online advertising campaign which ran for about a year before the films actual release date. This type of adverting was obviously very much below the line as that they were mass distributed rather than aimed at an individual. However the online adverting did include some examples of above the line marketing. A great example of this was the now notorious Tinder campaign where the protagonist of the film had his own tinder account made to that people could state weather they wanted to date him or not. Other below the line methods included posters and billboards which again were done very comedic with one billboard even being a spoof of the conventions of a billboard for a romantic comedy film when the film, in actuality, was a dark comic book, comedy. This was meant to spread the word of the film using the humor that the character of deadpool has been established to have in the comic book. There was even a satirical newsletter that fans could sign up for in the run up to Christmas called the "12 days of deadpool"

The tinder account created for Deadpool

There were also two apps created to advertise the film, the first of which being a Live wallpaper app which was simply to allow people to have an official deadpool wallpaper on their phone and the other was an app that allowed users to download Dead pool inspired Emojis to send to people in conversation. The emoji app gained notoriety due to the lewd nature of some of the ones featured (shown below:)

The final part of advertising i want to talk about was Ryan Reynolds's interview on Fox 5 in the run up to the films release. The reason that this is so beneficial is because it will draw attention to both Fox 5 and the film, both of which are owned by 21st century fox. This creates equity and generates more revenue for both products while not having to pay to include the interview on any other platform.
This campaign took advantage of technological convergence in several different ways. Firstly the people promoting the film took advantage of Web 2.0 (Tim o' Riley 2007) wherein the marketing materials being promoted online via social networks such as Facebook and Twitter as well as the prominent video sharing platform YouTube. These are all products that their young target audience would likely be familiar with. The second example of technological convergence would be in the creation of Emojis which are used in communication between smartphone (often recognised as a "black box device" or one that is capable of dozens of technological functions.)




The product was distributed via the cinema and then on dvd, blu- ray and digital download from a number of sellers.



3) Who was the target audience for the product (age, gender, spending power)

I have already stated the i feel that this film's main target audience was men between the ages of 16 and 35 due to the nature of the comedy in the film. As for spending power i would say that they would defiantly fit into the ABC1 demographic due to the emphasis on online marketing and the cost of owning a devise that can access the internet.
The film was able to reach this adiance  by including some very dark humor which was also understandable to this quite young audiance. For example the openig credits of the film parody those of other comic book films by including graphics that say Things like "Directed by: an overpaid tool" and "written by: the real heroes here"



4) How can the audience access this due to technological convergence and what is the advantage of this?


It is possible for audiences to download this film onto devises such as laptops, smartphones and tablets which are portable. This means that they are able to take the product with them wherever they go. As well as this portability also allows viewers to show the product to other people easily and discuss it with other people online over social media. This is a great example of the logical end of technological convergence which is clearly the "Black Box" theory which states that eventually it will be possible to access any kind of technology on one device. As well as this this kind of multi platform experience would not be available if it was not for the beginning of the Web 2.0 era which made the internet interactive and therefore made it possible to use to talk to other people on.


5) was the product successful?

Dead pool was praised for being a fresh take on what many consider to be a worn out genre of film. The film was made on a budget of 58 million us dollars and pulled in over 500 million within two weeks of its release. almost 10 times what it was expected to make (60 million)
as well as this the social media campaigns for the film have been praised as one of the best film marketing campaigns of all time.
On the 11th of January the star of the film Ryan Reynolds tweeted a promotional image (the spoof romantic comedy billboard) with gained over 9000 retweets and 16,000 likes. As well as this on the 22nd of may ,months after the films release the official Deadpool twitter account posted a promotional video with got almost 2,000 likes. This shows that the fans of the film are still very invested in the characters and story which they were presented with and therefore they want to see more.

On march 4th 2017 the trailer for the sequel was released to YouTube and as of writing this report it has over 4 million views.

LO1 Technological convergance advertising and distrobution

How does technological convergence impact advertising and distribution?

Technological convergence is the idea that technologies have begun coming together in order to create more sophisticated technology that will be able to achieve multiple purposes. Following the ideas presented in this theory it is clear that the biggest example of technological convergence would be the world wide web which is the main effect that technological convergence has had on advertising and distribution.
The fact that nearly everybody that any production company could possibly make would likely have an account on a social network makes the prosses of Above the line advertising easy for many companies to find their target audience and advertise to them. In order to show this i have included the first three advertisements that were on my own facebook timeline. As it can be seen the three things advertised to me (a 17 year old ABC1 male who lives in an urban area) was an upcoming film which seemingly has a target audience that would include me.

This shows that clearly facebook is able to gain information on it's users (done via "cookies" which track you and your friends usage of the website and sell the acquired data to companies to help them better know their target audience) as that i have been advertised products that should appeal to someone in my demographic. It can also be seen in the case of the post promoting Baby Driver that the company has tagged it so that users searching for "Hot Fuzz" or "Edgar wright" will find the advert as well. This makes sense as that anybody searching for either of these things would likely be interested in an new film produced by Wright (Who is most acclaimed for his film "Hot Fuzz" This type of advertising is consistent across most social networks.
Social media also allows smaller companies to advertise their products to their audience however they are not able to do so in the same way like the huge company I have shown above however they can use the same techniques of tagging their posts to have them noticed by the audience as that this is free to do. however the use off cookies to target their audience would be far more effective as that appeals to someones interests specifically. 
Compared to using traditional methods of advertisements such as Billboards, television advertisements and posters.   


Technological convergence has also massively affected the ways that companies can distribute their products to their audiences. Before the advent of Web 2.0 (o' Riley 2004) companies would have to pay distribution/ broadcasting companies to have their products reach their target audience however now that the Internet is interactive that means that practically anyone with an Internet connection, computer and web cam can produce low cost content and share it with the world. As well as this the beginning of the Web 2.0 era brought with it low cost distribution for large companies who could now sell products on platforms such as Google play or ITunes rather than paying to produce physical copies. Another side effect of this was the beginning of websites such as Netflix who started out as companies which would exclusively allow other companies to put their films and TV shows online for streaming in return for a subscription cost for users allowing both to make profit, however in more recent years Netflix and Amazon Prime has began creating their own content and have been very successful at doing so as can be seen in the list I have linked here:http://www.imdb.com/search/title?sort=moviemeter&title_type=tv_series&year=2016,2016 several of the most popular shows available are exclusive to an online subscription site such as "Preacher" and "Stranger Things."


While in the past it was a necessity if you wanted to watch television to watch together as that it was unlikely that a household would have more than one set available to the occupants now due to advancement of technology it is possible for every member of a family to be watching a different piece of media at one given time. This is known as Audience fragmentation and it has caused more companies to produce media products that will appeal to a more specific target audience leading a larger array of media being available for consumption by viewers.  


Media products in the Web 2.0 era understand that it is harder than ever to keep an audiences attention and therefore make use of a technique called "Second screen viewing" wherein when an advertisement brake begins a twitter hashtag (or something else related to social media) will appear. This means that the audience will be focused on the product being displayed to them in more than one media sector. This keeps viewers interested and allows them to talk to other people who are following the same series as then. two examples of effective use of second screen viewing would be the use of a hashtag by the Television program "Love island" to get viewers involved in a dialogue regarding the events shown in the program.  As well as this some copanies make use of "Symalcasting" which is where the audience can access the product on two different platforms at the same time. A good example of simulcasting would be the Mark Commode film review show on BBC radio which can be listened to on the radio and watched online simultaneously. This is effective because it allows the audience to access the product in a way that is convenient to them. as well as this modern coverage of formula one racing it is possible for viewers to watch pit stop brakes and other minor occurrences via the corresponding app.

LO1 Technological convergance and production techniques

Technological convergence and production techniques:

As with all new technologies the advent of technological convergence (as outlined in Jenkins’s 2008 theory) and the beginning of the Web 2.0 era has led to media products being both easier to create and distribute to audiences. In this report I will explain how technological convergence has impacted the three major stages of production of a media product (these being pre- production, production and post- production.) 

Pre- production: 

Whereas before interactive media was available to the producers of a product the planning of the nature of the product that was to be produced would require a meeting between everyone who was to play a leading role in its creation, new media has allowed this prosses to be completed with members of the project all around the country or even the globe.

This is achieved via interactive media utilised by the people taking part within such meetings these applications include (however, are not limited to) sites such as Google docs, which allows different members of a production team to write their ideas on a form and be credited for their input. This is very helpful to anyone in a leading role over a project as that if they are interested in an idea put into this form it is easy for them to discuss it further with the team member who thought of it as that their name will be given within the document on the section they composed. This is also a technology which doesn’t require the whole production team to meet in one location as they once would have as this is such an advantage as that it means that members of a production team can potentially take part in the planning for more than one product at any given time as that it no longer requires their complete focus to plan one that means that this convenience can directly lead to the audience gaining more media in a shorter amount of time due to the added convenience to the creators. Another tool which gives added convenience within the planning stage of media would be the ability to create planning documents (Ie: Mind maps and Mood boards) online via websites such as Canva mood board creator  [https://www.canva.com/create/mood-boards/] and Mindmapfree.com mind map creator[http://mindmapfree.com/] These are both low-cost tools to use which allow you to create professional planning documents on the internet and share them easily with other members of the team. This could be to share ideas for a narrative (on a mind map) or a particular stylistic quality (in the form of a mood board.)  

Production: 

Much like pre- production it has become very easy to use low cost tools to produce a media product using pieces of equipment which are becoming more available to the average person. There are hundreds of examples of production software that is now available to anyone who can afford what is becoming a smaller price. For example certain parts Adobe creative suite allows the production of professional products across multiple media sectors such as Photoshop and InDesign for print products as well as Animator for film. This large collection of professional software being affordable has been very beneficial in the independent media world  as that it allows smaller creators to create products which can compete with those created by much larger creators. 

Another example of this increased access to production technology would be the decreasing cost of camera equipment. For example it is now possible for a creator to by a 4K Sony camera (ultra HD) for under £1000 meaning that for one investment they can create great looking video products. 



Post - production: 

In terms of post production technological convergence has again provided equipment and software which has made the process far easier for anyone to perform. Good examples of this would be Adobe premier which is a program for video and audio editing and Lightroom for image editing.
Pre- production is such an easy thing to do now that there are even multiple smartphone apps that seek to make video editing easy for a user to do anywhere. The most popular example of this would be Magisto.