Guardian 100

What is the Guardian 100 and who are the panellists that create it?

Media Guardian 100 is an annual guide to the most powerful people in the industry. Candidates are judged on three criteria - their cultural, economic and political influence in the UK. A panel of experienced media watchers from the worlds of politics, journalism, advertising and the Internet judged entrants using three criteria: cultural influence, economic clout and political power of all candidates.

How many women are in the top 100?

19 women

What companies do these women work for and in what roles?

- controller of fiction, BBC - controller, BBC Radio 2 and 6Music, BBC popular music - director of vision, BBC - director, BBC news - chief executive, Pearson - chairman and chief executive, Shine Group - chairman and chief executive, Random House UK - chief executive, Guardian Media Group - chair and chief executive elect, Channel Five - founder, editor-in-chief, Huffington Post - editor, London Evening Standard - editor, Grazia - AOL executive vice-president and president of People Networks - chief executive, PFD - reality TV star, author - chief executive, Shed Media - director of digital content, Guardian News & Media

What percentage of the 100 are women?
16%

How would you assess the balance of power in this list and why do you think it is this way? Dominance and subordinate groups, conclusion

To conclude this information I believe that from looking at the Guardian 100 I was able to determine that men within today's society are still dominant and women still belong within the subordinate groups of society. This is because women are still being downgraded below men and this shows through the work that both oppositions do. Even though women have reached their post-feminist status men will still be dominant within society as they have the upper hand in most or all conglomerate organisations.

A Comparitive Analysis on the Post-Feminist representations in "Flightplan" and "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider"

Post-feminism refers to women's achievements of equal rights, however to an extent when referring to films this achievement has become a worldwide symbol and acts as a model to many triumphs women have achieved through many years of battling the still existing patriarchal society which created a large burst of contentment upon the way women were represented as post-feminism. In 2005 the film Flightplan was released directed by Robert Schwentke which created a burst of contentment's upon the way women were represented as post-feminism was being highlighted. Jodie Foster plays the career striving protagonist Kyle Pratt, in search of her lost daughter. In 2001 Simon West's directed Action/Adventure film Lara Croft:Tomb Raider which was another successful post-feminist film , it shocked the world as this character (Lara Croft) became a renown film icon.

The major connection between the two characters within the films is that they represent powerful, independent women who aren't controlled by men. This can be seen through the way Kyle was represented within the film as she was portrayed as a white middle class single mother, with a good job as an engineer. She plays both a mother and father to her 6 year old daughter as she has to take on the role as a breadwinner and a full time mother. This connotes to the audience that she's challenging the stereotypes against lone parents within today's society as they are seen as women who don't work and claim benefits. Her costume is a major factor that influences the post-feminist ideas as she dresses in black clothing, thus indicating her mood, as wearing black shows she is still mourning for her husband's death and also indicates she goes againts the hegemony of the "male gaze". It also creates a narrative enigma within the film as it allows the audience to see how the narrative develops as this power, strong minded women battles the challenges of the male antagonist within the film.

Furthermore Lara Croft:Tomb Raider is also represented in a post-feminist manner as she is also being portrayed as this powerful, independent women although as she takes the role of a man, by going on an adventure to fight and kill the villains and save the world. This also challenges the stereotypes held within fantasy films as there is male protagonist saving the world with a women by his side. She represents women to be powerful and can do anything men can, as this film reverses the typical gender roles as a women (Croft) saves the man, who plays the damsel in distress.

Although Croft plays this power hero, this still creates a sex symbol as her costumes connote her to become part of the male gaze as she wears tight clothes which shows her figure. The director/institution might have created for the purpose of appealing to both the male and female audiences as the female audiences might look up to her and use it as a form of escapism. Whereas the male audience us it as a means of entertainments, and to also see how women might take the role of the "typical" male role within films. Within both films the similarity of Strauss theory of binary opposition as both women faces their enemies, i.e. Pratt fights against the man who took her child and Croft faces and challenges the villains trying to destroy the world, and although their roles of oppositions are different as one is more significant than the other ( Croft being more significant and more physically challenging).

Both the protagonist within the film highlight a key role, as both have a mission to complete which can be seen through the way both narratives have been constructed as they both face different challenges they both have the same outcome. For example Pratt has to look for her daughter and faces the captain and police officer as they take advantage of her emotional state and use it against her i.e. the death of her husband left her feeling distraught, but they make her believe that she is hallucinating and imagined her daughter was on the plane with her for example there is a scene where the captain and police officer stand above Pratt, with the use of camera angles and shots make her look inferior. This shows that even though Pratt plays a post-feminist, powerful, independent female, the control of male dominance is still upon her thus stating society is like that, i.e. just because women have reached a certain potential, men still have control over their limit to success, which connotes to the audience to see the subtle message behind this film.

Croft is also her mission to save the world from evil men trying to destroy it, although her setting is different to Pratt's as Pratt is set on an aeroplane and Croft is set in mountains and tombs and using props like guns and knives connects her higher more risky characters which would usually be seen as a man playing it, but as both characters indicate post-feminism has been reached. Both film connote that women within today's society don't have to be dictated by men and can control their own life's and achieve their own goals.

To conclude, post-feminism states and celebrates the historical achievement of women in the last 20-30 years within society and how women play a major role within the media today, as they are represented as being strong minded, powerful and are no longer self-reliant to men. Within the film Flighplan, political issues are raised as there is a scene where Arab men are accused of taking Pratt's child and are looked at like they are suspicious, this raises issues that occurred regarding the attacks upon 9/11 created a moral manic as it issued information to the audience that it was take seriously. Both film received high critics as they both reached post-feminism in the words of many female audience across both the UK and US.

Internet Institution Case Study....Google

Who owns the site?

Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998.

Do they also own any traditional media businesses?

Google doesn't own any traditional businesses, however they are in partnership with other companies like AOL of Time Warner, MySpace and Sun Microsystems.

What other internet sites do they own?

Google owns many other sites which they service to for example Google News, Google Product Search, Google Groups, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Images, iGoogle, Blogger, Gmail and Youtube.

What is it's revenue?

Google's revenue is $21.796 billion from 2008.

What is it's overall worth?

Google's total assets are worth $31.768 billion from 2008

Research 5 key facts about the institution:

1) Google is an American public corporation
2) Google's mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful"
3) Google began in January 1996, as a research project by Larry Page
4) The name "Google" originated from a common misspelling of the word "googol"
5) 99% of Google's revenue is derived from its advertising programs

Quotes about the institution?

1) Google's corporate philosophy embodies such casual principles as "you can make money without doing evil," "you can be serious without a suit," and "work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun."

Fortune Magazine

2) "Google has a current Overall Rating of B (Positve)"

http://reports.finance.yahoo.com/w0?r=37886135:1

3) "Google actually relies on our users to help wiht our marketing. We have a very high percentage of our users who often tell others about our search engine"

http://www.woopidoo.com/business_quotes/authors/sergey-brin-quotes.htm


Summarise two linked Wikipedia articles

1) The birth of Google, beginning to the future
2) Traditional search engines do not consider document quality in ranking search results, however Google changes things.
3) Even in this primitive Internet world, the need for more accessible interfaces to growing data collections had already been recognized.
4) The prototype used well-established technology to crawl from page to page by following links.
5) To calculate rankings from this family tree, the pair developed the PageRank method. In short, the method ranks a particular Web page highly if many other highly ranked Web pages link to it.

http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100660&org=NSF- On the Origins of Google

1) There were ten papers co-authored by Googlers in these conferences, which covered several areas of machine learning including domain adaption, online learning, bandits, boosting, sparsity and kernel learning.
2)At Google, we've gathered hard data to reinforce our intuition that "speed matters" on the Internet.
3)Speed as perceived by the end user is driven by multiple factors, including how fast results are returned and how long it takes a browser to display the content
4) In other words, we purposefully slowed the delivery of search results to our users to see how they might respond.
5)While these numbers may seem small, a daily impact of 0.5% is of real consequence at the scale of Google web search, or indeed at the scale of most Internet sites.

http://research.google.com/

The companies corporate homepage which is http://www.google.com/corporate/
includes:

1) Google Toolbar
2)Google AdWord
3) Usenet messages
4) Links to images, videos, maps, news, shooping
5) Google AdSense
6) Links to Google Philosophy

Five Best Videos....

This video was very well presented and provided the audience with a lot of information and used images to accompany the text which connotes that it was very professional and engaging. It also answered the questions about the internet.



This video was very good as it showed a lot of research went into as they used other images and videos within their production to show what they were trying to put across. The fast paced music also helped create and up lift and enticed the audience and having the information being presented in a way the audience can understand.



This video was very creative as to why I chose it my third favourite, because they used paper instead of the computer to write what they were trying to put across. They also used people to hold the signs to show that it was their opinions and they also stated statistics.



This was another creative video which shows quite a lot of information but on a shot time, it uses a up beat sound to entice the audience in and shows both the good and bad side of the internet and it was brilliant.



This was a great video as it discussed both the negative and positive issues regarding the internet using images and a good soundtrack to make it more appealing. A lot of information presented in a quality way.

Self Evaluation...

When I and Jaleesa presented our video to the class, we received some great feedback although some were negative in a way as we had some feedback that told us things to add in our video to make it better. Below I have written some of the feedback we had received in different sections of (ACTUP).

Aesthetics=This was about how beautiful and well-formed our video was and we received 4's as they thought that it was well presented and very appealing as it caught their eyes. They justified why they gave us these comments was because they said that the images and text we used were very good as they were clear to read and they matched the images.

Creativity= Majority of the people in the class gave us level 3 and 2 as they thought it that we showed some originality as we provided enough information that required us to cover all questions asked as well as having different images to connote the information we were trying to provide.

Technology=The technology we used was Windows Movie Maker and people gave us level 3 and 4 as they thought that using that technology was simple as well as easy to read from. They also thought that we were being creative and made it original as we were able to used different advancements to create the video we wanted. They also thought that the soundtrack helped to create that final look which made it look more presentable and of high standard.

Understanding=The comments we received from the information they received was that it was a level 4 as they thought that the information was easy to read and made sense as it stated the both positive and negative aspects of the questions we were meant to answer. They thought that we put a lot of detail in the information and they understood it very well.

Production values=People stated that they felt that it was very polished and professional as we conveyed our message in a way that they could understand and it was excellent as it looked very professional. Therefore I am proud of the video myself and Jaleesa have created as it was understandable and reached the message across.

Plenary..

What is the difference between an Internet user and a television viewer?

A person who uses the internet becomes an active audience as they are able to engage by becoming both a consumer as well as a producer, for example they are able to produces their own webpage, video etc and can consume a lot of information at the same time. An internet user is technically capable professional user of the internet and is able to control what they want to watch and what they don't. They are able to engage in different activities like forums and chat rooms where they can talk to people across the world in an instant. They can produce documents online and share with other people by user generated contents and can create profiles about themselves, allowing them to become an internet user.

A television viewer is someone who is a passive audience, this just means that what they receive from the TV is just information they can't alter or change but just receive and acknowledge it. A TV viewer is someone who watches the TV and isn't an active audience that can do something to change what they see or hear. However as the internet develops the TV starts to decrease as people are able to continue with their entertainment upon the internet. Although TV provides people with information and knowledge they can believe and trust unlike the internet as some sources are found to be wrong and people can't trust it.


Are people more active online?

I believe more people are active online as they can become producers of the internet and create aspects to suit their needs, for example it allows them to pick and choose what they want, when they want as they can interact with people across the world. The internet allows people to create their own webpage to allow people to view it a public or in private. The internet allows people to become more active as it consists of the three media platforms, rather than the TV as it is very limited. The internet is for all ages and can be accessed anywhere, and can share what they want to people they want to. Therefore I believe that the internet allows its audience and user's to become more active, as technology develops the audience develops with it.

New/Digital Media - The Internet