WEEK 3

Title of Resource: The Choice

link here

 Citation of Source:
Gibbs, N. (2014, December 10). The Choice. Retrieved December 8, 2014, from http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-ebola-fighters-choice/

   Summary: Time Magazine is notable for announcing a "person of the year" each year. This year's winner was "Ebola fighters." The person of the year doesn't have to necessarily one person, or even a good person. The person of the year is the person, people, machine/thing, or concept that has shaped the world the most in the last 12 months. This year's choice was made because the workers who risked their lives to fight Ebola are being considered heroes. Part of the choice was made by issuing an online poll (results can be seen below). 

Important quotes: "But 2014 is the year an outbreak turned into an epidemic, powered by the very progress that has paved roads and raised cities and lifted millions out of poverty"

 "There was little to stop the disease from spreading further. Governments weren’t equipped to respond; the World Health Organization was in denial and snarled in red tape.
But the people in the field, the special forces of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Christian medical-relief workers of Samaritan’s Purse and many others from all over the world fought side by side with local doctors and nurses, ambulance drivers and burial teams."

"For tireless acts of courage and mercy, for buying the world time to boost its defenses, for risking, for persisting, for sacrificing and saving, the Ebola fighters are TIME’s 2014 Person of the Year."

 

REFLECTION: This title used to be called "Man of the Year" and was a way for writers of the magazine to keep their audience's interest. After the first one in 1945, this tradition was bound to be a success. Time Magazine's person of the year represents the influence of a person, people, machine/thing, or concept, and it also represents the progress or lack of, that the world has made that year. Some magazine picks were controversial. Hitler was named Man of the Year in 1938, and Stalin was given the title twice. Wallis Simpson, a WOMAN, was given the title of "Man of the Year" in 1936. Martin Luther King, the computer, Earth, and "you" (the numerous amount of people who contributed to the user-generated content online) have also won the award. In 1999 the title was changed to "Person of the Year". TIME Magazine held its first online poll to allow users to contribute to the selection in 1998, however they stress that the choice is made independently of users votes. However, this interaction between the magazine and its' consumers is a great strategy, the audience becomes more involved. It is also a clever marketing strategy, this tease of the possible winners makes audiences more anxious to know the results, and more likely to purchase the issue with the winner. I think this title raises awareness about world issues/current events and gets people more involved in the world. It's a clever thing to do, everyone wants to know what's going on so they can be in the loop. I think this years' winner was a fair choice, although my choice would've been Malala Yousafzai.

 

 EXTRAS: POLL+VIDEO

Poll of this year's considerations for Person of the Year

16.2%

Narendra Modi

9.2%

Ferguson Protestors

7%

Joshua Wong

4.9%

Malala Yousafzai

4.5%

Ebola Doctors and Nurses

4.3%

Vladimir Putin

3.4%

Laverne Cox

2.7%

Joko Widodo

2.6%

Pope Francis

2.5%

Chibok Girls

2.2%

Barack Obama

2.1%

Beyoncé

2%

Jennifer Lawrence

1.8%

Angela Merkel

1.7%

Taylor Swift

1.6%

John Oliver

1.6%

Elon Musk

1.5%

Tim Cook

1.4%

Elizabeth Warren

1.3%

Pete Frates and Pat Quinn

1.2%

Hillary Clinton

1.2%

Christopher Nolan

1.2%

Shonda Rhimes

1.2%

Xi Jinping

1.2%

Jack Ma

1.1%

Bashar al-Assad

1.1%

Tom Frieden

1.1%

Dilma Rousseff

1%

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

1%

Reed Hastings

1%

Janet Yellen

1%

Jeff Bezos

1%

Kim Kardashian

1%

Kanye West

0.9%

Benjamin Netanyahu

0.9%

Hassan Rouhani

0.9%

John Kerry

0.8%

Rand Paul

0.8%

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

0.7%

Thomas Piketty

0.7%

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

0.7%

Mary Barra

0.6%

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

0.6%

Travis Kalanick

0.6%

Rick Perry

0.5%

Ted Cruz

0.4%

Charles and David Koch

0.4%

Harvey Levin

0.4%

Mitch McConnell

0.3%

Roger Goodell

VIDEO FROM TIME MAGAZINE

CONVERGENCE 

 NAME OF SOURCE: Why Convergence? It's the Consumer, Stupid link here

SUMMARY:  The news industry in the early twenty first century was at a state of "disarray" according to Kolodzy's book, Why Convergence? It's the Consumer, Stupid. News companies were struggling to keep the attention of readers, with a decline in audience and a decline in advertising. This caused journalism to be changed forever. Like the article said, "The merger of AOL and Time Warner helped solidify the definition of convergence to mean electronic content delivery, because that merger was the coming together of a content company, Time Warner, with an online delivery company, AOL." Time Warner's convergence was one step in the direction of a new era of digital media. Convergence requires news organizations to rethink the way they create and deliver news and media.

CITATION:  Kolodzy, J. (2006). Why Convergence? It's the Consumer, Stupid. In Convergence Journalism: Writing and Reporting Across the News Media (p. 267). Rowman & Littlefield.


QUOTES: "It was the best of times and the worst of times. Those words describe the state of journalism at the beginning of the twenty first century." 
"Technological convergence has opened up new ways of presenting information." 
"The merger of AOL and Time Warner helped solidify the definition of convergence to mean electronic content delivery, because that merger was the coming together of a content company, Time Warner, with an online delivery company, AOL." 


 SUMMARY: Convergence is what allowed for me to find the source that I used for this blog post. It is easy to understand why digital media is appealing; it's quick to access, easy to understand, and holds a variety of other appeals. The convergence of TIME Warner with AOL led to an era of online media, allowing for TIME Warner to stay at the top of it's game and serve as a strong competition to competitors. This convergence allowed for the revival of their popularity, as they utilized all the methods of convergence. TIME Warner also demonstrated economic convergence; cross media convergence. The more media platforms their content is being viewed and accessed on, the more profits and success. TIME Warner's move towards online delivery served as a stepping stone to a new definition of convergence: media consolidation.