Media Magazine Confrence

The layout for the day was, firstly, a discussion on ‘Riots and representations’ by David Buckingham in relation how society is shaped by the media, then presentations by examiners Christine Bell, who gave a scintillating speech on the value of doctor who to the BBC, Steph Hendry, who gave a ‘cross-platform case study’ Pete Fraser gave some advise on production responsibility, and to be prepared for difficulties, then Garth Jennings gave an explanation of his career as a director and talked about his works, such as son of Rambo and hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, followed by some Q&A from Babita Sharma, a presenter for BBC World News, and Paul Lewis who works as a journalist for The Guardian, mainly talking about their work.

The main things I took from the conference is, that bad luck is to be expected and that most problems can be solved by creative thinking, which could in its self lead to the forming of new and better ideas.

David Buckingham talked about the riots and how media played a role in it, through its use to organize rioters, encourage anarchy and how the media portrayed violent and dangerous imagery, symbols and ideologies, in a positive and socially acceptable, that was supposed to have created to thuggish mindset that manipulated itself into this frenzied attack on law and peace.

One of the themes of the conference was about the use of Web 2.0, which is an adaptation of the already existing internet by adding user generated content through such sites as YouTube, face book, twitter est. That compete greatly with big brand media institutions, such as, BBC, broad sheet newspapers, radio and so on. And because of this those big brands that had for a long time been key sources of information, are now struggling to maintain the interest of the public.