Digital photos, social media sharing, and the Office of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Social media has given Canadians the opportunity to directly connect and share content with each other. Market trends show that users of new digital media prefer to consume and share visual content with celebrity or human interest themes. Finding such visual content is easier when it has been produced and distributed by others. In particular, both traditional news and social media sometimes reproduce digital photo handouts produced by the Prime Minister‘s Office (PMO). These handouts give the PMO an opportunity to feed a stream of positive visuals of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau into online Canadian media platforms. These campaign-style photos promote the prime minister but do little to educate Canadians on civic issues or government business. This creates a situation where the PMO might be diminishing the independence of social media spaces in the pursuit of political goals by reorienting these handouts towards social media-driven consumption. Where are PMO-produced digital photographs of Prime Minister Trudeau reproduced on social media and other non-social media web sites? By addressing this question, I attempt to demonstrate that by providing social media geared towards content sharing with affordable, in-demand digital photo handouts, political actors such as the Trudeau PMO use these platforms as distribution vehicles for their own positive leader-centric visuals. I hypothesize that almost all PMO digital photo handouts are reproduced by individual citizens on social media. However, significant numbers of reproductions on non-social media web sites were discovered under a specific set of circumstances. I highlight these trends that popular handouts follow and use them to construct a "shareability formula" that I suggest maximizes the spread of handouts online if followed. I then discuss the implications of these trends for public discourse on Canadian digital media and the changing dynamics between the PMO, mainstream news media, and a more responsive public

The Influencer Industry: Constructing And Commodifying Authenticity On Social Media

The most buzzed-about figure in twenty-first century marketing thus far has been the “digital influencer,” industry vernacular for the bloggers, Instagrammers, Pinners, and other social media users who—against the backdrop of widespread economic and professional instability—deliver curated content to audiences on social media and earn income by collaborating with major brands. Driving the rise of this phenomenon have been (1) individuals who want to be recognized as persuasive online (2) advertisers who increasingly direct their budgets to social media, where influencers’ “authentic,” personality-inflected content has proven potent for selling product (3) social media companies whose tools and rules both advance and encumber these activities and (4) marketing agencies and other marketing-related entities, such as talent agencies and trend forecasters, that build metrics platforms to measure influence, select influencers for advertising campaigns, negotiate deals between influencers and retail brands, and espouse the many benefits of expressing oneself “authentically” online in tandem with corporate sponsors. The precipitous development of an industry around these activities has, since the late 2000s, propelled billions of dollars into the social media economy and helped instigate a chain of events that have and continue to fundamentally change the production of culture. Drawing on 28 in-depth interviews, an analysis of more than 2000 press articles, and participant observation at industry events, this dissertation examines how the above stakeholders construct and negotiate the meaning, value, and practical use of digital influence as they reimagine it as a commodity for the social media age—a commodity whose value shifts in accordance with ever-changing industrial rubrics for cultivating and evaluating authenticity. The dissertation also provides necessary historical-cultural context to the rise of the influencer industry, elucidating its complex roots that predate the digital era. Throughout, I show how in an era where authenticity is increasingly elusive, and trust’s and influence’s meanings as cultural ideals and functions as social processes are muddied, the influencer industry struggles to pin these concepts down, stabilize and define them, and make money off of these definitions. To this end, the actors involved in the influencer system work together in a variety of ways both intentional and unintentional, with social, industrial, and cultural consequences. These consequences include who can succeed, the shape of technological innovation and regulation, and products themselves. The study offers theoretical and methodological provocations to scholars of influence and authenticity to consider these concepts’ industrially constructed, contextually dependent nature. It also sheds light on practical issues impacted by social- and data-driven consumerism

Journalism: New Challenges

In seeking to identify and critique a range of the most pressing challenges confronting journalism today, this book examines topics such as: the role of the journalist in a democratic society, including where questions of truth and free speech are concerned; the changing priorities of newspaper, radio, television, magazine, photography, and online news organisations; the political, economic and technological pressures on news and editorial independence; the impact of digital convergence on the forms and practices of newsgathering and storytelling; the dynamics of professionalism, such as the negotiation of impartiality and objectivity in news reports; journalists’ relationships with their sources, not least where the ‘spin’ of public relations shapes what’s covered, how and why; evolving genres of news reporting, including politics, business, sports, celebrity, documentary, war and peace journalism; journalism’s influence on its audiences, from moral panics to the trauma of representing violence and tragedy; the globalisation of news, including the role of international news agencies; new approaches to investigative reporting in a digital era; and the rise of citizen journalism, live-blogging and social media, amongst many others. The chapters are written in a crisp, accessible style, with a sharp eye to the key ideas, concepts, issues and debates warranting critical attention. Each ends with a set of ‘Challenging Questions’ to explore as you develop your own perspective, as well as a list of ‘Recommended Reading’ to help push the conversation onwards. May you discover much here that stimulates your thinking and, with luck, prompts you to participate in lively debate about the future of journalism

Innovating for survival in a convergent newsroom environment

The beginning of the twenty-first century can be viewed as a critical period for the UK’s local and regional press. Many newspapers, faced with falling circulations and increasing competition due to the emergence of the internet, began converging their print and digital news operations in an attempt to halt the long-term decline by exploring new ways of growing their readership and attracting more income. This thesis examines the Published Outputs of a senior journalist who played a leading role in managing the transition to a convergent newsroom at the Lancashire Evening Post, a regional newspaper in Lancashire. The innovative content produced by the author, and the new editorial processes which he and fellow managers implemented, are critically analysed through the application of key insights from academic literature on media management and multimedia. It is argued that editorial innovation can help boost website traffic and increase audience engagement, while not necessarily damaging newspaper circulation figures; in fact, there is evidence to suggest they can even slow down the fall in sales. However, this research also demonstrates that these alone are unlikely to generate sufficient digital advertising revenue to help reverse the steep decline being experienced by the industry

Technical innovation among young people of color in hip-hop

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Comparative Media Studies, 2009.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 149-154).Hip-hop is a competitive form of popular culture characterized by an on-going process of aesthetic renewal and reproduction that is expressed through carefully selected media and communications technologies. Hip-hop is also a segment of the pop music industry that manufactures a wide range of commercial products featuring stereotypical images of young black people. These stereotypes disproportionately mark young black men and rarely reflect the technical sophistication and cultural literacy mobilized in hip-hop expression. This thesis begins with a reading of hip-hop culture through its use of media technologies, moves on to a historical examination of the hip-hop mixtape economy, and concludes with an analysis of the "Crank Dat" online dance craze. Foregrounding expressive deployment of media and communications technologies in hip-hop challenges damaging stereotypes with compelling narratives of young black men driven by a spirit of competition, creativity, and technical innovation.by Kevin Edward Driscoll.S.M

Fame Attack

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. The follow up to Chris Rojek's hugely successful Celebrity, this book assesses celebrity culture today. It explores how the fads, fashions and preoccupations of celebrities enter the popular lifeblood, explains what is distinctive about contemporary celebrity, and reveals the psychological, social and economic consequences of fame both upon the public and celebrities themselves. The book develops the framework for looking at celebrity culture which Rojek set out back in 2001, by showing how ascribed celebrity, achieved celebrity and celetoids overlap. The book gives a new emphasis to the role of the media and public relations in engineering fame, and the psychological consequences of celebrity - notably Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Celebrity Worship Syndrome. The book is a landmark contribution in explaining how celebrities dominate the social horizon and why we need them