News Corp’s Facebook Scare Campaign

Posted on 05. Apr, 2010 by Cameron Reilly in Australian media

This morning I ran a quick experiment. I searched through News.com.au’s site for stories that mention Facebook in the title to see what percentage of those stories had a negative slant. My theory is that large media companies such as News are scared about the amount of traffic Facebook is getting, as it’s decreasing their own readership thereby affecting the revenue they can generate from advertising. So they are running Facebook scare campaigns.

News Corp, of course, has even more reason that other media companies to be hatin’ on the Facebook, because they own MySpace, Facebook’s biggest competitor.

So – on with the results.

NEGATIVE STORIES

Facebook pedophiles stalk TV star, 11

Police probe students’ Facebook hate group

Spook’s wife in strife over Facebook post

Pupil’s Facebook slur against teacher

Facebook affair behind murder, suicide

Teacher dies after nude Facebook photos

Facebook used to organise Auburn racial riot – police

Nicole Kidman bullied on Facebook

Teenager fired from job via Facebook

Fake police Facebook page fools users

Premier Bligh writes to Facebook boss

Facebook removes kill-a-prostitute page

Teen’s death posted on Facebook first

Parents use Facebook to trap paedophile

Facebook deal forces computer clean-up

Rail bash teen’s mates turn to Facebook

Smiling in a bikini on Facebook costs Canadian woman her insurance

POSITIVE STORIES

Facebook extended to iPhone, iPod Touch

Pure Digital Sensia radio goes on Facebook, Twitter

Orangutan photographer a Facebook hit

Thief nabbed by Facebook detectives

So… out of twenty-one stories, there are FOUR positive stories (19%) and SEVENTEEN negative stories (81%).

The question is – does this show a bias in coverage?

Discuss.

TrueLocal Advertisers Deserve A Refund

Posted on 09. Oct, 2009 by Cameron in Australian media

I went looking for a house cleaner today and ended up on News.com.au’s TrueLocal site. I found someone in my area, clicked on their ad, then tried to send them an email. Up popped the below contact form. But I COULDN’T contact them because the verification captcha is broken.

When I mentioned this on Twitter, @truelocal replied

@cameronreilly Thanks for brining it to our attention, it’s an issue from our end with Firefox3.5 and will thankfully be fixed v soon

Well that’s all fine and dandy, BUT, I asked, are you going to be refunding your advertiser’s funds? It seems to me like you aren’t delivering your promised services.

So far, no response from @truelocal….

It’s not acceptable when billion dollar media companies can’t get a freakin website to work properly. My suggestion? Stop hiring monkeys.

If I was a journalist for Fairfax, I’d probably do a story on this.

a “debate” confined between two false poles

Posted on 21. Sep, 2009 by Cameron in media 2.0, new media

There’s a fascinating post on Dissident Voice about the battle going on in the UK between the BBC and corporate media who are apparently threatened by the breadth of the Beeb’s online offerings.

Quotes:

"The Murdochs of this world are naturally unable to conceive that corporate sponsorship compromises news reporting, showering pound and dollar-shaped sticks and carrots that inevitably cause journalism to slither in corporate-friendly directions."

"In his dystopian novel, 1984, George Orwell described the art of thought control called “Newspeak”:

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”

We are offered a “debate” confined between two false poles: the claim that the BBC is a threat to the “independent news” provided by commercial interests, and the claim that the BBC is a rare source of “independent, truthful” reporting. Modern journalism acts to “narrow the range of thought”, thus serving the powerful interests that control the mass media."

This idea about "a debate confined between two false poles" is something that Chomsky has been talking about for decades. In the West, we’re told that we have a ‘free press’ but, in reality, we have a press that’s owned either by wealthy individuals (Packer, Murdoch, Stokes, et al) or the Government… whose hold on power is often regulated BY those wealthy individuals and their control over the way the population thinks due to their media assets. And so what tends to happen is that our media discusses the happenings of the day in a limited fashion, always confining the debate between two false poles, making it LOOK like we have choice and healthy debate, where in reality we’re only given a small range of options to discuss.

My favourite example in Australia is to look at our election coverage. What is the range of debate and discussion given in the Australian media, during election cycles or any other time for that matter, to alternatives to our consumerist capitalist economic model? Where is the open discussion about the benefits of Socialism or Communism? It doesn’t happen. Why? Because the aforementioned wealthy owners of the media companies don’t want the people thinking about Socialism or Communism unless, of course, it’s to talk about the failures of those alternative models. The reason they don’t want us thinking about these alternatives is that if we moved towards them, they would lose their wealth, power and privilege.

This is why we need a NEW media that isn’t controlled by corporate interests.

Book Your Round Trip to the Moon! Guaranteed!

Posted on 20. Sep, 2009 by Cameron in Advertisers

The one thing I love even more than 50s SF stories are advertisements from the 50s for Space Age promises. I bought a few copies of "Astounding Science Fiction" at a secondhand book store in Paddington (that’s a suburb of Brisbane) today. The owner told me that she picked them up in a deceased estate. They are all from the 50s and in near perfect condition.

I love this back cover of the November 1954 edition which promises "A Bona Fide Opportunity to have your name "On File" with the first company embarking on commercial flights to the moon!"

Working in advertising these days, I’m often trying to think up innovative prizes to offer people for taking part in competitions but I’d never thought about guaranteeing a trip to the moon. These guys were WAY ahead of their time. I wonder if the Science Fiction Book Club in NY still have those names on file? Maybe they will pass them onto Virgin Galactic? Assuming, of course, that the people who added their names to the list in 1954 still want to travel to the moon….

The inside cover offers readers a copy of the book "Across The Space Frontier" written by "seven of the greatest living space experts", including former Nazi and then director of NASA Dr Werner von Braun.

One of the other copies of ASF I picked up (December 1950) had this advertisement on the inside front cover which reads:

"Dianetics – the first true science of the mind. Dianetics started in Astounding Science Fiction. It is not the first, nor will it be the last time, Astounding Science Fiction precedes science generally."