Weekly New/Digital Media homework Week 32

WEEK 32
1. Google given access to healthcare data of up to 1.6 million patients

• Artificial intelligence firm DeepMind provided with patient information as part of agreement with Royal Free NHS trust
• A company owned by Google has been given access to the healthcare data of up to 1.6 million patients from three hospitals run by a major London NHS trust.
• DeepMind, the tech giant’s London-based company most famous for its innovative use of artificial intelligence, is being provided with the patient information as part of an agreement with the Royal Free NHS trust, which runs the Barnet, Chase Farm and Royal Free hospitals.
• It includes information about people who are HIV-positive as well as details of drug overdoses, abortions and patient data from the past five years, according to a report by the New Scientist
• DeepMind announced in February that it was developing a software in partnership with NHS hospitals to alert staff to patients at risk of deterioration and death through kidney failure.

2. Soundcloud SoundCloud Go subscription music service launches in UK and Ireland

• Streaming firm hopes to persuade some of its 175m listeners to start paying £9.99 a month by being ‘less spreadsheet, more Snapchat’
• Music-streaming service SoundCloud is launching its £9.99-a-month SoundCloud Go subscription tier in the UK and Ireland.
• The company hopes that features including track downloads for offline listening, and a bigger music catalogue courtesy of label licensing deals, will persuade some of its free listeners to start paying.
• SoundCloud Go launched in the US in March after lengthy negotiations with labels, music publishers and collecting societies.
• As in the US, it will have a catalogue of 125m tracks: licensed recordings as well as the remixes and mash-ups that have helped SoundCloud attract a monthly audience of 175 million music fans.

Section A Improvements

iHave30 Occupy Movement and Sky News report

Section A

Contrast the techniques used by each product to communicate its message

Both texts catches the attention of the audience through the on-screen action. For instance, the first text ‘iHave30’ uses brisk-pace editing, along with fast jump cuts in order to capture the attention span of the audience and educate them within 30 seconds. The second text uses a variety of techniques, such as multiple interviews with the protesters and the visual violence between the police and prosecutors, which forms a binary opposition.  It also creates an enigma code, linking to theorist Barthes, which makes the audience wonder ‘will the prosecutors get evicted?’

How can audiences use YouTube and other social media sites to create their own identities? You may also refer to other media texts to support your answer.

The iHave30 video can influence other viewers to create their own channel and make quick videos educating the audience about themselves. This has been done successfully through many beauty vloggers (slang for video bloggers), such as Huda Beauty and Zoella, who started out making their own homemade videos about makeup and fashion and now are famous and have celebrity endorsements and a line of makeup as a result of receiving a lot of attention, through the millions of views. This may influence their fans that also have the same interest in beauty and makeup as well, creating a personal identity for the fans.

How has new technology changed the way individuals and groups can challenge dominant and hegemonic ideologies? You should refer to other media products to support your answer.

New technology, especially social media sites like Twitter and Facebook enable individuals to be free in their speech and this allows the audience to have the authority to challenge dominant ideologies. This is most evident through the 2015 elections, where the majority of Twitter users argued David Cameron had absolutely no chance of winning the elections and people criticized Cameron for his “pointless policies” which proved wrong as in the end he won the elections. However, it could be argued that the audience do not have the power, typically hegemonic control as it’s proven that Twitter can remove any comments which are seen as a violation.