The value of Media Studies Degrees

Dr Bex Lewis posted an extract from A Times Educational Supplement article about Media Degrees and I have posted the following as a comment...

Don't get me started on Media degrees. well you have, I do't have a problem with a Media Studies degree "as an object of academic study" as long as graduates don't consider, or get sold the idea, this will prepare them for a career in the media industry because it won't. 

The industry is fed up of people leaving uni with a media degree and expecting to enter the industry at a higher level or even at an entry level, at which point you have to ask what was the point of a 3 year degree course especially from next year! My experience as an industry practitioner and sometime involved in training at both apprenticeship and degree levels, as well as talking to key staff involved in finding new talent, is that very few media degrees actually prepare students to work in the industry without significant additional training. 

The industry has got so fed up, it has put its money where its mouth is and set up a range of apprenticeship schemes so it can train and prepare students with the skills needed.  

You talk about transferable skills and the skills you list are transferable IF they were delivered and developed properly in university, but experience leads me to believe they rarely are. 

We find these practical skills are rarely delivered in a real world and current way, rather they are dealt with in a generalised unrealistic way and students believe they are being prepared for a career in the media industry and I am afraid a lot of universities are letting their students down badly. 

For example, I delivered a Media Induction Course for a dozen cohorts and the first 8 or 9 cohorts were largely graduates with a variety of media degrees and I have lost count of the number of times they would tell me that they learnt more in that 9 day course about working in the media industry than they did throughout their 3 year degree course. 

A Media Degree shouldn't be a soft option. To prepare students for the relatively small number of opportunities in the media industry, it should be a tough course learning a range of practical skills in the first and second years and specialising into a specific area in the 3rd year. Media is a very practical and hands on industry. This needs universities to employ a broad range of associate lecturers who remain active practitioners in the industry so they can deliver current and future practice. The industry is changing so fast that someone who has left the industry even 3 years ago will be out of date.

Thoughts after attending Media & Digital Futures workshop at Salford University

I have just taken part in a very interesting, simulating and thought provoking workshop where as industry representatives we were asked to work through and comment on two scenarios as to how the Manchester city region might look in 2017. One had a positive slant and the other a more negative one. I was in one of two groups looking at the more negative scenario which was called the 'noise' scenario.

In a nutshell this scenario says that the UK will still be in recession, technology has advanced but businesses are struggling to make good use of it. The lack of variety of industries and decline of manufacturing has made the region unsustainable with the emphasis being on service and knowledge based.  It is difficult to generate revenue on line as consumers expect it to be free and although there are a large number of digital startups the business models are generally unsustainable.  There is a skills gap with the education system not geared up to produce students with the skills needed and so young people are not making the transition from education to employment. Digital technologies have disrupted rather than helped our everyday lives and people have become overwhelmed by the amount of information, communication and 'noise' coming at them. On top of that the city's digital infrastructure cannot handle the demand with rural areas only having limited access. Finally the region is over regulated, public transport is unreliable and expensive and although everyone is talking about the problems there are no radical strategies being put forward.

I have to say this scenario is not to far from where I feel we are now.

So to start with we were asked as a group to come up with 5 key points from the scenario to start the discussion. I came up with 4 which were..

1. There is no space for the little guy.
2. Education is not delivering equipped young people.
3. 'Free' is stifling innovation as it hard to produce a return on investment. Which is why we no longer make anything.
4. Both the transport and digital infrastructure are failing.

Others thoughts included a negative impact on families and society. We discussed how the use of computers smart phones and other devices has continued the impact on family cohesion, that eating in front of the TV, had started. Family members occupying the same space but back to back looking at screens rather than face to face round the dinner table. Another point was the lack of a 'ladder' structure where larger companies support and provide small businesses with work and then we started to explore more sustainable business models. The current funding cuts are already causing the social businesses to revisit their mix of commissions to social work proving free or subsidised services, with the need to make  a profit to replace the grant funding to support the social work.

Next we looked at placing these issues, as well as a number from a previous group, onto a matrix made up of more or less likely to happen against being harder or easier to resolve. These other issues generated some debate including one about people not able to understand the technology they were using which got us into 'digital natives' versus 'analogue grans'.

Then we looked at how some of the 'easier' & 'likely' issues might be resolved with the suggestion that the tech one would get resolved without too much intervention because more and more of the population will be digital natives. I made the point that although more and more people have access to the technology they don't necessarily have the skills to use them creatively.  However it was interesting to note that most of the points we placed in the 'likely' and 'hard' quadrant of the matrix and we didn't really have an opportunity to discuss how some of those could be resolved other than a consensus that education is key. One comment was our education system is still based on victorian principles and when you consider Carole Vorderman's report on Maths recently and the need for two different maths qualifications,  if you extend that out to all the other subjects we have a major issue with not preparing our young people for a life in a 'post modern' society, our education system at best is still turning out 'moderns'. With my apprenticeship assessors hat on I am only too aware that most of the graduates from the mountain of 'medja' degrees aren't ready to work in our industry, their degrees haven't given them the skills to work as new entrants but has generated the expectation that they can come straight in as directors or producers. So the industry has set up an apprenticeship scheme to take on 16 to 22 year old and give the training and experience to become valuable team players in the industry.

I then brought up the whole collaboration issue and coined the phrase 'collaborate or die". One of the repeating threads in all my research into how our industry is changing is the mantra of 'you must collaborate'. Unfortunately although we encourage our children to collaborate at an early age, once they hit primary school the concept of collaboration is pushed out and so we now have several generations that just aren't interested in collaborating on creative or business projects which is a real shame.

Then we were given the opportunity to identify 5 issues for our own business, again I came up with 4...

1. 'Free' on the internet makes developing viable business models more challenging!
2. How do I get above the 'noise'?
3. I need to create links with other businesses and collaborate.
4. The challenge is to persuade potential clients to buy my skills, as they feel more and more that they can do it themselves or they just don't value them. Just look at most corporate videos, the sound is rubbish!

Finally we all came back together and we shared the findings of all 4 groups and although we had been looking at two different scenarios the findings were remarkably similar.  One comment that struck me was we live in a 'greed economy' where the aim is to make as much money as possible so I can have the latest this that or the other, instead of the motivation being, doing what is best for the community whilst making enough money to be OK with my lot, going from a 'me based culture to an 'us' based one. In the light of the recent riots etc this really hit home with me.

I found the whole morning a very enlightening experience and I look forward to the outcomes of this research and hope that Salford University can take it further.

Under 25’s swap remote controls for iPhones as ‘Social TV’ trend takes over

Digital Clarity, a specialist Digital Marketing Agency have released the result of a survey they undertook to explore social media habits wjhich included the figure that 72% comment on TV programmes via social networks as they watch them

How young people watch television is rapidly changing according to a new study of UK mobile internet users below the age of 25. 80% of those surveyed use a mobile device to communicate with friends while watching TV with 72% using Twitter, Facebook or mobile applications to actively comment on shows as they are watching them. These are the findings of a study conducted by Digital Clarity, a specialist digital marketing agency which polled over 1300 people under 25 from a cross section of the UK. The trend known as ‘Social TV’ is popular with young people as it allows them to instantly comment on their favourite shows to friends in different locations via the web or mobile phone. In the US, a joint Nielsen and Yahoo study late last year found that the trend is already well established with over 86% of mobile internet users choosing to communicate with each other in real-time during broadcasts. Now ‘second screening’ as it is referred to in the States has become common place in the UK too. Rather than social networks and television competing for attention it seems that young people are happy to embrace both and use one to enhance their enjoyment of the other. The UK study found that 34% described the trend as ‘fun’, 32% said it made television ‘more interesting’ with 42% mentioning the ‘community’ aspect of ‘Social TV’.
One survey respondent, Ashleigh Foulser, 18 a student in Bournemouth said, “I love being able to keep in touch with my mates while I’m at college. They are in different towns to me but it’s like having them round to watch TV. We share a lot of jokes and if I comment on something funny or stupid I get replies almost immediately.” The survey discovered that the most common way to communicate is to use Twitter (72%) Facebook was next popular (56%) and mobile applications (34%). 62% of Social TV users like a combination of all three. Certain shows such as X-Factor, Skins, Glee, as well as soaps Coronation Street and Eastenders are particularly popular in the UK generating very high Twitter traffic and Facebook messages as they are broadcast. Reggie James, founder of Digital Clarity explains, “Up until 12 months ago, TV was struggling to reach the younger market as more and more channels were becoming available. Social TV has changed this completely by turning programmes into online events where you have to watch them as they happen”. The significance of ‘Social TV’ is not lost on the television networks who have found themselves with whole new marketplace and a different pitch for advertisers. Last month, a US HBO channel reran the Howard Stern film ‘Private Parts’. Stern was watching simultaneously and started add a live commentary to the action resulting in sky high ratings far higher than could have been forecast breathing new life into a 14 year old movie.
“The audience have already taken their seats and are ready to join the conversation”, concludes James, “it’s now up to the TV companies to tap into this huge and lucrative market.”

Digital radio listening reaches 25%

25% of all radio listening is now to digital platforms, like DAB, Freeview, on line, up just a fraction from 24.8 per cent last quarter.

Listening to DAB has also increased, by a similarly small amount, from 15.3 per cent to 15.8 per cent, whilst internet radio and digital television listening remain around the same mark.

So the digital lobby still has a long way to go to get all radio listeners to go digital. I believe DAB is a dying platform, the signal strengths of the current system mean that listening on portable sets inside is unreliable and car listening patchy, and as to the quality, don't get me started. More and more radio and audio listeners are choosing what, and more importantly, when they listen with services like podcasts. It would be interesting to see if the latest RAJAR figures have and breakdowns for deferred listening for podcasts.

AudioBoo's Mark Rock on 2010 and predictions for 2011

Jemima Kiss has written an article in The Guardian on what Mark Rock head of AudioBoo has to say on 2010 and what will happen in 2011....

What do we have to look forward to in 2011? The past twelve months have been a defining period for the digital industries, says Audioboo chief executive Mark Rock, but there's plenty to come next year as, he predicts, Mark Thompson will stand down and Flickr will be sold.

Here are what appealed to me from what Mark had to say....

What will 2010 be remembered for?
Overall, 2010 was a defining year for so many things - digital, politics, data, mobile. Wikileaks cracked open what hopes to be a better discussion around open data next year and the role of digital in that.
Mobile is (finally) huge thanks to Apple and Google and not the telcos. The BBC was forced to face up to the fact that it can no longer operate like an extension of the civil service and expect us to pay for its inefficiencies.
The government seems to think the digerati in Shoreditch will happily move to Stratford (no). DAB radio is still the floppy disk equivalent of the internet."

What was your best and worst moment?
The best was the surprise at personally ranking so highly in the top 100 tech people in the UK. At least my dad was impressed. The worst?
Worst work moment? The BBC taking 14 months to finally state officially they were too busy to work constructively with us on a professional basis because they were too busy. We're used loads by individual reporters and departments there but their audio is not allowed onto the BBC site. Bizarre."

What's your hot tip for 2011?
Mobile, mobile, mobile. Apps, apple, android, advertising, tablets and the mobile internet.
Traditional TV set top box manufacturers will move to Android as an OS for increased user interaction and lower development costs.
Mark Thompson will gracefully stand down from the BBC. Microsoft will release a poor cousin to the iPad.
Audioboo raising some more cash to go truly global.
Android Marketplace getting less techy and more consumer friendly.
Flickr being sold to a company that actually cares about it. 

You can read the full article at The Guardian.

Labour calls for inquiry into BBC licence fee deal

James Robinson writes in The Guardian...

The shadow culture secretary, Ivan Lewis, has demanded an urgent parliamentary inquiry into the BBC licence fee settlement following the hastily negotiated deal agreed with the government last week. Lewis has written to John Whittingdale, the Conservative MP who chairs the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, asking him to hold an investigation into the six-year deal.

Lewis said the agreement "rode roughshod over the independence of the BBC, crushed any serious prospect of reform and involved no consultation with licence fee payers or parliamentarians". "The BBC is one of this country's great institutions and its future a matter of public interest," Lewis added.

Although Ivan Lewis is my own MP and a good local MP I have to say I am not confident he will get very far.

BBC cuts in licence fee deal 'brutal but realistic', say corporation executives

John Plunkett and Maggie Brown have covered the BBC response in an article in The Guardian.

Senior BBC executives admitted today that staff would be stunned and baffled by the scale of the cuts in the licence fee settlement, which they described as "clearly very challenging". Peter Salmon, the director of BBC North, said it was "tough, but it is tough all round". "These are pretty difficult times. This is an exceptional settlement and it's going to be difficult for the BBC but it's difficult for everyone in the whole UK economy," he added.  "On the positive side the stuff that we are taking on board are a collection of related responsibilities, a lot of which make sense given what the BBC does and what the BBC cares about – programme-making, content-making, news," said Salmon. "The most important thing for the BBC is the fact that it maintains the BBC's independence. We are very keen on multi-year settlements, on having the kind of financial security we need over a period of time so that we can plan, and also stay at arm's length from the government and government politics. It's really important to us, it's important to licence payers, it's what's kept the BBC brave and independent all these years. It's a tough day. The staff are going to be stunned and probably quite baffled by the news. You get a sense on lots of fronts you are not immune from all the big and difficult things happening in the world. The pension gap was another difficult part of the story. These are tough times."

The BBC Radio 5 Live controller, Adrian van Klaveren, also speaking in Salford today, said the corporation had been surprised at the speed of the licence fee settlement and described the cuts as "clearly very challenging". But Van Klaveren added that there was a positive side to the deal, which guarantees the future of the licence fee for the next six years. "Clearly these numbers are very challenging and will need a lot of work," There's a process that is going to take time. It's complicated and there are a lot of options. Changes need to be made over a period of years. I think all of us have been surprised at the pace of things over the last week. Numbers have moved around and each number clearly has different consequences. It will be felt more and more as years go by. We are not talking about something that has to be achieved by April 2011. There is time to work it through sensibly."

 Go to the Guardian web site to read the rest of the story.

Television ads more effective than online according to new research by Deloitte

How Do have just posted some analysis of a report by Deloitte on the television sector is based on one-to-one interviews with industry executives and a survey of the UK public designed by Deloitte and conducted by YouGov between 9th and 12th July 2010.

When it came down to remembering adverts, television was again top, with more than half of those surveyed recalling a TV ad as the most memorable campaign of 2010. 10% chose a newspaper campaign, while 1% said a banner ad and the same for an iPhone/iPad advert. 2% went for online video ads.

The respondents were also asked about pre-rolls on online video clips, compared to ad breaks. 36% stated that they were more likely to pay attention to the traditional 30 second advert, with just 1% opting for a video pre-roll or online video.

“Online advertising’s poor showing relative to television may surprise given that the former has often been portrayed as television’s nemesis,” said media partner, James Bates.

 “However, despite the positive perception of television advertising, its bed of roses is not free of mildew. Among television advertising’s greatest preoccupations is measurability. While television generates billions of commercial impacts every day, it is hard to measure precisely how many of these are viewed.”

Another problem for television advertising is keeping people sitting there watching it. It appears just 13% always or “almost always” watch the entire ad break, 11% never watched it and 2% claim they never watch any television which has advertisements.

When it comes to using catch-up and on demand services a massive 86% said they always fast-forwarded through the ads.

So an interesting view that people remember ads better when they are on TV even when the mute button is on or they are spooling through them!

The UK's media consumption habits from an OFFCOM report

We are social have posted an interesting summary on media consumption habits...

Ofcom released its seventh annual communications market report last week. Its a goldmine of information about media consumption habits in the UK and is worth reading in full, the internet section in particular. In terms of social media usage, it reveals interesting data such as:

• Social networking (in blue) is an all day long activity, filling the gaps between traditional media:

• The data above illustrates the popularity of television in the evening, when over half (52%) of all media activities undertaken involves watching television on a TV set. In the morning, radio is more popular, but declines by the evening when TV is at its peak. Text communications (including social media usage) and voice communications both make up a fair proportion of media activity during the daytime and after the end of television peak time

It is interesting to see how the text based communications in blue stay fairly constant throughout the full 24 hour cycle. There is alot more interesting analysis on the we are social post including...

• Proportion of media use through device by age group radio usage is holding up except in the 16 to 24 age band.
• Proportion of computer use by activity - interesting to see the percentage of phone and video calls at around 30%
• Internet and PC take up - which is levelling off  although the move to mobile internet is growing.

Do take a little time to look at these results. If you have more time then you could look at the original report.

How the internet really affected the election from The Guardian

In today's media section of The Guardian is an interesting article by Jemima Kiss on how the internet affected the election following a report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
Jemima wrote...

Nic Newman, the BBC's former future media controller for journalism, spent six weeks reviewing Facebook groups, Twitter coverage and the use of social media by traditional media organisations. "This was never going to be an internet election," he says. "Social media is just another layer ... it has always been there, through discussion and networks in the pub."
Facebook dominated the media behaviour of the 18-24 age group he surveyed, with an emphatic 97% saying they used the site during the election. The same group used the web more than any other source of news – 89%, compared with 81% for TV and 59% for newspapers.

in conclusion she wrote....

"Mainstream media are largely getting it right, and recognising that this is about conversation and not broadcast," Newman says. "For politicians, this is the first election where they are really having a go and some, like John Prescott, have been authentic and posted regularly while others have been in broadcast mode, still finding their feet."
Easy to dismiss, but less easy to master – social media is yet to come of age. But its growing influence and ubiquity, particularly among younger voters, cannot be ignored. Newman cites one of the more modest estimates, by Mori, that the voting turnout of 18- to 24-year-olds increased by 7%, above the national average of 5%.
"The complications of this new reality are that 18- to 24-year-olds do enjoy big events like the TV debates, but they are not prepared to consume political messages passively," he says. "[Social media] puts more tools in the hands of audiences to make politicians and the media more accountable."

So Social Media hasn't made it yet, but this election has shown it is a way that the 18 to 24 generation are having their say, they are not prepared to be passive and absorb whatever is fed them.

Rights for Interns

The TUC has started a new web site to help folk who are on unpaid work experience of as the Americans call it interns, a phrase that is getting used more and more here in the UK and somehow gives the idea of working for free some credence.

My own union BECTU has been very pro-active in this area as unpaid posts are prevalent in the media industry. "If you a job you are going to have to work for free so we can see if you are any good. If you are we might offer you a job...."

BECTU – fighting exploitation in the audio-visual industries
BECTU is the union that represents people working in film, TV and other audio-visual industries.  This industry is rife with unpaid work.  BECTU believe that 1 in 6 of their members is working for no pay, and they have been campaigning against the exploitation of unpaid work. In November 2009, film worker Nicola Vetta, with BECTU’s support, won a very significant Employment Tribunal case against London Dreams Motions Pictures Ltd over non-payment.

Even though there are strict regulations on this practice they don't seem to being adhered to.

Now we all sometimes need to offer a 'lost leader' to get a foot on the ladder but consider it very carefully as a business decision. Think of it as an investment. Will I get a return on this investment of my time and effort? Weigh this against your "worth".  By working for nothing you are devaluing yourself by saying you are not worth being paid anything for your services.

So if you are starting out, or changing sectors, do go and study this web site so you enter into an internship with your eyes wide open knowing what you are letting yourself in for and most importantly what your rights are.

Thoughts from the CMN conference

I have just got back from the Church and Media Conference "Voices From The Cloud" and thought it would be good to start with a post about my thoughts.

Monday
It was good to hear but I wasn't surprised by the opening keynote address from Roger Bolton as he repeated his comments from those he made at the Sandford St Martin Trust awards.

Next was the first opportunity to take part in the Strands. I have to say I was disappointed at the range of strands but decided to go to the 'online' strand and we had an interesting debate on social media and how organisations might use it as well as a discussion on appropriate media for various audiences.

After tea we heard from various 'catholic voices' and it was during this session I explored the Twitter feed using the hash tag #cmc10. I had to download an app for my iPhone but I was soon enjoying the comments from my fellow delegates on the debate.  This has been the first time I have felt the desire to follow an event on Twitter.

I have to say the entertainment for the first night left me fairly cold, sorry Jo Enright but it didn't work for me. Both Tony Campolo and Tony Jordan were much funnier.


Tuesday
Tony Campolo was stunning, definitely the high point of the conference so far, and perhaps without realising it, gave an excellent justification for retaining quality public service broadcasting, he talked about advertising and the desire to acquire stuff. Do go and download the talk from the CMN web site when they are posted in a couple of days and listen or even listen again to his passionate presentation.

After coffee I was interested to hear about Local Media for Local People and was especially interested in what Duncan Williams had to say about funding news online as part of the mobile phone charges because he wanted to have quality journalism on his titles and advertising on line wouldn't provide enough revenue in his opinion. I firmly believe we need to find business models and funding streams to make quality content available on line and to be able to make a living at it.

In the afternoon we had the second of the Strand sessions and we started by looking at a Child Wise report on children's media usage including things like mobile phone usage and spend.

Following on from that was an excellent session on Social Media and this session together with the two strand sessions have left me reviewing my on line presence and personnas.

After the evening meal we had an excellent session where Tony Jordan, who writes for Eastenders and Life on Mars shared with us how he came to write the script for a new BBC production of The Nativity story. He took us through the trials and tribulations of how he chose to handle the story, I can't wait to see it. It was wonderful to see how God has used him to produce a wonderful human perspective to birth of Jesus.

Wednesday
It was very interesting to hear what Aaqil Ahmed had to say about his first year as head of BBC Religion & Ethics as well as being the first dedicated Religion & Ethics commissioning editor. He shared how with the right ideas it is possible to pitch Religion and Ethics ideas and get them in main stream slots if you come up with ideas that work there.

Finally Andrew Graystone gave us the opportunity to consider in small groups what impact the conference had had on each of us as individuals and for me this blog and a new Twitter presence Sound_Mike to add to my specialised Pro Tools presence MikeProTools  are the start of this.

When it came to discuss broader thoughts about what the CMN could take on, I suggested that the Strand sessions could be used to provide a range of Digital Literacy training workshops and I offered to do a Podcasting course following my work with the media union BECTU and their Digital Tool Kit series.

So all in all an excellent 3 days with simulating presentations and discussions and great opportunities to meet old and new friends.