How has the BBC adapted to new/digital technology - Case Study.

BBC has adapted new/digital technology really well; it’s spread in between most of the platforms, which are: print, internet, TV, mobile phones, and radio. BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is a British public service broadcaster. It’s the world's oldest and biggest broadcaster, and is the country's first and largest public service broadcaster. BBC is known in many countries around the world and also, people find BBC as one of the most valid news around the World. E.g. BBC has international TV channels like: BBC World News, BBC America, plus a bouquet of thematic channels - BBC Entertainment, BBC Knowledge, BBC Lifestyle, CBeebies and BBC HD, which are in the process of being rolled out around the world.

BBC has 10 channels, which are: BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, BBC HD, Cbeebies, CBBC, BBC News, BBC Parliament and BBC ALBA. They are broadcasted on TV, but you can also watch some of them online on iPlayer.com. BBC has got over 3200 programmes and they all are available on iPlayer.com. However, the considered traditional platform for BBC broadcast was TV only, and BBC One Channel. It was serving in London only; it was closed during the WWII, but reopened after. They then added BBC Two, and with time… the rest of the channels. Web 2.0 however, helped BBC to spread across different platforms. March in 2006, BBC news has written an article called ‘Learning to love We 2.0’, their first paragraph said ‘Technology commentator Bill Thompson decides it is time he learned to stop worrying and love Web 2.0.’ Since then, BBC spread into different internet platform, BBC was interested in looking into bloggers and the technical community. In 25 December 2007 another product of internet platform was made – iPlayer, however it was launched in 2008. iPlayer helped BBC be even more popular across the different platforms, at the start people had only access to BBC channels and programs, but it was modified in February 2011 so the iPlayer has also started to have access to other channels like: ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, Channel 4, E4, More 4, Film 4, Channel 5, 5*, 5USA and S4C. However, Caleb Cox (October 2011) said ‘Watching BBC iPlayer may soon be illegal if you do not possess a TV licence if proposals under consideration by the government become law.’ He points that any UK resident viewing any a live broadcast - must pay the annual licence fee of £145.50, however it is not necessary to this, if you just watch catch-up TV, which is iPlayer in this case. C.Cox ignores though that only 0.2 per cent of households use iPlayer or some other catch-up TV services. E.g. Royal Wedding – More than 24m viewers in the UK watched it on terrestrial TV, and more than 34 million viewers in UK watched it including live iPlayer viewings. It shows that TV is still more popular and preferred by people than catch-up online TV services. The Department for Culture though says that they’re considering changes of the licence fee. A spokesman said: "Government is aware of developing technologies and the changing viewing habits of those who watch television programmes. How the BBC is funded as these issues evolve is a matter the department will need to address in the near future.". BBC iPlayer isn’t the only one TV catch-up service, one of the biggest rivals of BBC iPlayer is 4oD. 4oD hasn’t got as many programmes as iPlayer, but on 4oD you can also watch all episodes/seasons from your favourite series rather than just the series from the last week. The viewing figures of 4oD show that year to date viewings stand at 242 million, when the average of viewing figures of some programmes on iPlayer stand at 5 million.

In conclusion, BBC has adapted new/digital technology really well; however, it might affect the future of BBC TV and other/older platforms. It might even take them all down and replace.

(The only question that I didn’t cover is:
What are the debates around the future of the BBC in the WEB 3.0 era?)

Marxism & Pluralism Essay

Marxism is no longer relevant in a society alive with plural messages.

Do Marxists still exist in our society? Marxists lived here more than a century ago, so their view on the society might be not as valid or relevant anymore. It’s based on Karl Marx, which writings were a response to the extremes of poverty and exploitation he witnessed in the years after the British Industrial Revolution. Or are Marxists even more relevant now? It is a society, where capitalism takes over control. However, people in society are also getting more individual each day, they now have bigger source of information they need, to find out what’s true or not.  They become more plural. For example, Religious pluralism – Pluralists speak of religion as it’s not the sole and exclusive source of truth, and thus that at least some truths and true values exist in other religions, or sometimes as a synonym for ecumenism (the promotion of some level of unity).

Marxists believe that society is a thing, which is controlled by the ruling classes (bourgeoisie). The bourgeoisie is controlling the proletariat (which are the working classes) to work for them, and take out of them lots of different benefits. Marxists believe that bourgeoisie is controlling the proletariat through Media. They say that Media tells proletariat what to do, and that rebelling against bourgeoisie is wrong, Marxists say that Media does it without even letting people know about it, proletariat is simply brain-washed. Marxists don’t like Media because they think that it’s not helping the poor people and supports capitalism. They believe that only way for working classes could free themselves is to start revolution and rebel, bring back the communism. Marxists are in favour of communism, it’s a political system in which everyone is more equal and they always get what they need (in terms of work, food, housing and leisure). 

So, do Marxist still exist in our society or not? Capitalism is taking over control in most of the countries, America especially.  However, Capitalism is now also thinking of poor people too. In UK, people have NHS, which is a free health care. Proletariat families can also take benefits, or get certain things for cheaper, if they can’t afford it.  This might show that Marxists view isn’t as valid and relevant anymore, as Capitalism doesn’t seem to be as bad as they create it. This is the way of thinking that Pluralists like, they don’t believe in one-sided, biased truth;  they believe that the reality is composed of many ultimate substances and they also get the belief that no single explanatory system or view of reality can account for all the phenomena of life. Also, they believe in a condition in which numerous distinct ethnic, religious, or cultural groups are present and tolerated within a society.  The belief that such a condition is desirable or socially beneficial. 

Pluralists know that people are becoming more individual each day. They are more likely to look for the answers themselves, rather than listening to what Media/bourgeoisie/religions serves them. People now have much wider access to the information, so if they’re not sure about the validity of the answers they get from the society, they will search for the answers themselves, and they will chose whichever answer suits them more. We now live in a ‘pick and mix’ society, when we get information/answers from lots of different sources, so then we can put them all together and make our own mind about it, which makes us more independent and individual.  

The decline of religion might be a good example. In 1950-1960 (‘The Golden Age’) and before that, religion used to be one of the most influential things for people in their lives. Nowadays, people are more likely to join cults, sects or new religious movements which suit their life styles much more. They might be either Audience Cults, or Client Cults. Audience cults are the ones in which people become members of some movements, and they attend meetings, and the Client cults are the ones in which people follow their ‘beliefs & answers’ themselves, e.g. in internet. The statistics show that only just fewer than 10% of population attend churches. Marxists however, believe that religions are still as strong and also, in support of capitalism. Marx & Engels (1957) say that religion promotes capitalism in 3 ways: Legitimating social inequality, Disguising the true nature of exploitation and Keeping proletariat passive and resigned to their fate. Legitimating social inequality means that religion promotes the idea of existing hierarchy as natural and God-given. Disguising the true nature of exploitation however, means that religion insists that inequality is the product of our sin, or a sign that people have been chosen by God. Hence, religion obscures and distorts the real cause of social and economic inequality. The last way as to how religion controls proletariat is keeping the working classes passive, so they don’t want to rebel against capitalism. The religion makes them think that the suffering and poverty is fine and acceptable, as they’re going to be rewarded for this in heaven after death/in next life. Some say that religion is a drug,  it keeps people relaxed, happy and away from the reality.

In conclusion, Marxism is still relevant in society as they say that the things about capitalism don’t change, but only get worse. They say that bourgeoisie controls people in lots of different ways, not just through religion, but also and especially through Media. However, the impact of pluralism is shown here too. We now live in a ‘Pick and Mix’ society, where people become more open to the different sources of the answers, rather than just one-sided answers, as the Marxists are.

The Summary on Web 2.0

Web 2.0 are websites that use UGC, which stands for User Generated Content. The websites also allow users to interact with each other and the site, and it has developed from simply limiting users to passive information. The examples of Web 2.0 are; Social Networking sites (like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or Google Plus), Blogs (which are websites like Tumblr, Blogspot etc.), File Sharing websites (YouTube, Google Docs, Pirate Bay or Flickr) and Wikis (websites like Wikipedia, Urban dictionary etc.). E.g. Facebook users can share, post, chat, read, download, create profiles, pages, groups, events, games, they can also advertise and many more. Facebook is used every day by millions of people all over the world. YouTube though, has a bit less things to do on it; however, there are still about 490 million users! People on YouTube can watch, stream and post/share videos of your own! It might be either professional video, or your home video; it doesn’t matter. YouTube also gives you the opportunity to comment on other videos, and share your own view/opinions. Both of these sites are used to help businesses run and develop – spreading the world via posting on Web 2.0 they can also be used to viral market. Many people now depend on social media sites to be informed of current events, and keep in contact with their family/friends. Web 2.0 does affect us on everyday life. Our expectations as consumers of Web 2.0 of the internet have risen dramatically and without Web 2.0 many historical events may have ever happened. Web 2.0 has been used in both positive and negative ways and has affected not only our ideologies of the internet, but our whole culture. I think that Web 2.0 has made us more individualistic than ever, it has been making people to say their own opinion and stand for what they believe in. The Media can ‘inject’ whatever information they into our heads, but with the audience’s ability to share and discuss this information it makes that extremely difficult for the media to lie.

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