Film festival “Ebertfest” back to its in-person edition in Champaign

Movie lovers from all over the country will be reunited in Champaign for the 22nd Ebertfest. Starting next Wednesday, April 20th, the traditional film festival returns to its annual in-person edition at the Virginia Theater after two years.

Photo by Manu Ferreira

To celebrate its comeback, the event features award-winning movies, discussions with filmmakers, music presentations, and other unique experiences for the public.

“We usually have about 12 movies every festival. This time we have four music performances that are integrated into the festival. And a lot of the movies are about comedy or about music. So, we wanted to return with a kind of a joyous event,” says Andy Hall, the Assistant Festival Director.

The list includes “Soy Cubana” by Jeremy Ungar, “Nightmare Alley” by Guillermo Del Toro, the documentary “Summer of Soul”, and a silent movie that will be screened along with a full live orchestra.
“The Chicago Mob and Orchestra directed by Renee Baker will join us this year on Saturday morning to score the movie “Siren of the Tropics”, which is a Josephine Baker movie from the 20s,” explains Hall.
The Virginia Theater is all ready to receive the public. The space was recently renovated. “During COVID, when we were shut down, we put in a new sound system and a new climate control system for the auditorium. Both of those were pretty big projects,” affirms Mitch Marlow, the Virginia Theatre’s PR Manager.

Since we are coming back from a pandemic, producers are taking one safety measure to make the audience more comfortable. “We decided to have empty seats between groups. So, people will feel that there is still a little bit of space between them and strangers that they might meet at the event,” explains Andy Hall.

Mitch Marlow says the expectation is that the Ebertfest will be well attended. “One of the films is already sold out and the other ones are getting close.”

Despite all excitement of having the festival back, unfortunate news: the comedian Gilbert Gottfried, one of the headline guests, passed away this week.

“We are devastated. After talking to him for so long and looking forward so much to having him with us at the festival. But we are still very honored and privileged to have the movie 'Gilbert' scheduled at the event. We are excited to have the director with us still to talk about the person Gilbert was,” declares Hall.

The event’s producers also found a way to honor the comedian. “We are dedicating the whole festival to the memory of Gilbert Gottfried this year,” reveals.

Ebertfest will happen from April 20 to 23, 2022. Tickets and festival passes are available on the website www.thevirginia.gov. University of Illinois students have a special discount.

For more details, visit the website www.ebertfest.com.
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This article was published on the UI7 Newsroom website.

Published: By: Manu Ferreira - 4/15/2022 09:43:00 AM

Broadcast Video and Audio: old ways and new ways

It seems like almost all of the current issues we have nowadays come down to two reasons: money and technology. From its creation to its evolution, technology/the internet has changed everything around us. In journalism, it started with the printed newspaper’s decay and it’s walking towards a broadcast decay in the future as well. 

Credit: Pixabay

As mentioned in the Reuters Institute’s report “What Is Happening to Television News?”, TV viewing has declined by 3 to 4% per year on average since 2012, which if compounded over ten years will result in an overall decline in viewing of 25 to 30%.

The special report “Fading ratings” published by Variety in January 2022 shows that just 12 out of 124 measured networks saw an increase in average primetime audience in 2021 when compared with 2016. It means that 90% of networks experienced a decline ranging from two thousand to several million viewings. 

Variety’s report also reveals that broadcast networks have seen “tremendous primetime audience declines” having CBS as an example that has shed 3.2 million viewers since 2016. It is important to note that despite the decline, CBS still had about 5.6 million primetime viewers in 2021, which is an expressive reach, enough to lead the TV industry. However, the drop in those numbers is not a good sign in the long term. 

The audience has shrunk with the growth of new streaming platforms and video-on-demand providers, like YouTube, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and social media. Studies have shown that the majority of TV viewers now are 60+ years old, while the young generation most likely has digital media as news sources.

“There are thus no reasons to believe that a generation that has grown up with and enjoys digital, on-demand, social, and mobile video viewing across a range of connected devices will come to prefer live, linear, scheduled programming tied to a single device just because they grow older,” affirm Nielsen and Sambrook in the Reuters’ report.

Broadcast survival depends on how much and how quickly we can adapt to the changes and recalculate routes. The silver lightning is that technology can also be a solution.

What we can infer from this digital and mobile age is that is affecting the news cycle, from gathering to production and consumption. To reach younger generations, TV providers need to invest in innovation and experimentation in both formats, storytelling methods, length, and distribution strategies to remain relevant. It has to be short, visual, dynamic, and timely. 

In my opinion, the biggest challenges in terms of content are adding value to stories that have already been shared on several websites and social media, and reporting complicated stories in real-time. But it is one of the skills a journalist needs now and will need even more in the future.

I agree with Gavin Bride when he says in Variety’s article “The future of TV news won’t be on TV” that the solution for broadcast is “to knock down the walls and distribute everywhere free and ad-supported: FAST services (and not exclusively on one platform), live streaming and feeds on social media. The new consumers expect content to follow them, not the other way around.” 

I couldn't find a current estimate of the total sum made on ads, but in 2019 the CEO of Xumo, Colin Petrie-Norris, said that "on just ad-supported content with a low-end load of 15 to 17 ads per hour on average, as a channel, you can be earning between 15 cents to 80 cents an hour per viewer." 

Considering that these channels have millions of users, it's not a bad deal. Variety's 2021 report showed that Roku had 55.1 million active accounts, Xumo had over 24 million, Peacock had 20 million, and Pluto TV had 52.3 million global monthly average users.

And it keeps growing. According to data from Kantar, 18% of U.S. households now use at least one free ad-supported TV service as of the fourth quarter of 2021, more than doubled since 2020. YouTube announced it will stream free ad-supported TV shows for the first time to compete with the growing number of FASTs on the market. It is also an opportunity to reach consumers that can't afford cable TV. Another reason is that it can boost distribution and use this visibility to invite people to subscribe to other exclusive content the providers may produce.

In conclusion, journalists and news outlets, in general, must use social networks and all digital platforms available to reach the audience and get closer to them. More than distributing content, they can make this new generation more involved and engaged to express their opinions and suggest topics.

 

Credit: Pixabay

*This article was submitted as a memo assignment for the course "Current Issues of Journalism" at the University of Illinois.

Published: By: Manu Ferreira - 4/09/2022 09:11:00 AM

Augmented and Virtual Reality Journalism: what is its role in the future?

Until a few weeks ago, Augmented and Virtual Reality were synonyms of video games or entertainment to me. I haven’t realized how it has been in journalism and it will be part of the future of the newsrooms. It can reshape storytelling and reporting, and it’s a way to engage the public and appeal to new audiences. 

Virtual Reality | Credit: Pixabay

One fact that particularly made me interested in this immersive technology is that our brain registers the virtual reality experience differently than reading or watching a video because the body feels it and that sensation is recorded as a real memory. And how having that feeling someone has experienced is more impactful and can enhance empathy and make the user care more about the subject or problem in question. 

As an example, I would mention The Weather Channel (TWC), which has used mixed reality to communicate forecasts and other pieces of weather information. One that impressed me is called “A tornado hits the weather channel”, in which the meteorologist explains the different stages of the phenomenon and safety tips. At a certain point, the tornado appears to crash into the studio and he shows all the damage caused by it afterward. It actually seems real. 

However, in my opinion, incorporating these tools daily will be a challenge for journalists since they will have to acquire new skills and approaches, and rethink the core journalistic concepts. I agree with Taylor Owen, in his article on CJR, when he says that “journalists cannot appropriate the physiological power of virtual reality without also thinking seriously about how leveraging it for journalistic purposes changes the way the world is represented.” 

That is an issue pointed out in the paper “Real Virtuality: A Code of Ethical Conduct”, published by philosophy professors Michael Madary and Thomas Metzinger in 2016. They affirm that VR is a “powerful form of both mental and behavioral manipulation, especially when commercial, political, religious, or governmental interests are behind the creation and maintenance of the virtual worlds.” 

There is also another possible negative point to consider. As Saleem Khan says here, as the technology advances, false (but real-looking) VR/AR experiences will inevitably enter the market. It’s a challenge that’s critical for media outlets to face. We need to consider the accountability of actions and structures that determine what occurs within them. Media literacy and fact-checkers will have to be extended in order to include the new technology journalism. 

In any case, this is the future. Technology is consistently progressing. News organizations and journalists must do experiments with all the news tools in reporting to take advantage of these advancements, creating engaging and compelling stories. That is the route to attract new audiences and keep journalism alive.

References:

Owen, Taylor 2016, "Can journalism be virtual?", Columbia Journalism Review, accessed 11 March 2022, <https://www.cjr.org/the_feature/virtual_reality_facebook_second_life.php>.

Wired Insider 2018, "Digital Reality and the Revival of Journalism", accessed 11 March 2022, <https://www.wired.com/wiredinsider/2018/08/digital-reality-and-the-revival-of-journalism/>.

Madary M and Metzinger TK (2016), Real Virtuality: A Code of Ethical Conduct. Recommendations for Good Scientific Practice and the Consumers of VR-Technology. Front. Robot. AI 3:3, accessed 11 March 2022, <https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2016.00003/full>.

*This article was submitted as a memo assignment for the course "Current Issues of Journalism" at the University of Illinois.

Published: By: Manu Ferreira - 3/11/2022 08:44:00 PM

Influential social media sites: How do they interact with journalism outlets?

Some people may disagree but, in my opinion, social media is an ally to the future of journalism. Besides the problem of sharing mis- and disinformation, they can be used as channels to spread news and reach more audiences. That is the way some newsrooms organizations find to survive by reaching a younger audience. In addition, it is a tool to connect and engage with people. 

Credit: Pixabay

Speaking of reaching more audiences, it was interesting to observe the results of studies conducted by Pew Research Center. In 2013, it revealed that about 52% of Twitter users and 47% of Facebook users got news from social platforms. Two years later, in 2015, a new study found that 63% of both Twitter and Facebook users utilize social media as a source for news. 

Those numbers increased in the 2017 survey when 67% of Americans said they get at least some of their news on social media. In that year, 26% - up from 18% in 2016 and 15% in 2013 - of all U.S. adults used to get news from multiple social networks, such as Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp. However, in the 2021 most recent study, the percentage dropped due to misleading information about the election, the COVID-19 pandemic, and more. About 48% of people said they get news from social media “often” or “sometimes” - which still is a large portion of the population. 

These drop-in numbers stressed how social media companies also have an important and necessary role in regulating content. The lack of vigilance and responsibility for the toxic content, conspiracy theories, and misinformation published resulted in many people losing confidence in the platforms. As Eric Lutz said in his article on Vanity Fair about the changes Facebook is implementing to monitor hate speech, it “shows that the company is perfectly capable of addressing harmful or misleading content on its platform - which makes it all the more maddening when they don’t.” 

Journalism and Social Media

Another relevant point I recognized is that when it comes to the most popular topic the users consume, entertainment news is in the first place, followed by local news. 65% of Facebook members want to know about events in their communities. And here is where we find another powerful role social media can play in journalism: help to establish relationships and listen to the audience. 

I would like to quote Michel Skoler’s article on Nieman Reports (Why the News Media Became Irrelevant—And How Social Media Can Help). 

“We can’t create relevance through limited readership studies and polls, or simply by adding neighborhood sections to our Web sites. We need to listen, ask questions, and be genuinely open to what our readers, listeners, and watchers tell us is important every day. We need to create new journalism of partnership, rather than preaching.” He adds that “social media can guide us. If we pay attention and use these tools, we can better understand today’s culture and what creates value for people.” 

More than just looking for followers and distributing their content, journalism outlets can use social networks to get the readers involved to express their opinions and suggest topics, making it more engaging.

References:

Skoler, Michel 2009, Why the News Media Became Irrelevant—And How Social Media Can Help, Nieman Reports, accessed 23 February 2022, <https://niemanreports.org/articles/why-the-news-media-became-irrelevant-and-how-social-media-can-help/>.

Lutz, Eric 2020, Facebook is finally overhauling how it handles hate speech, Vanity Fair, accessed 23 February 2022, <https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/12/facebook-changing-hate-speech-policy>.

Mitchell, Amy; Kiley, Jocelyn; Gottfried, Jeffrey; Guskin, Emily 2013, The Role of News on Facebook, Pew Research Center, accessed 23 February 2022, <https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2013/10/24/the-role-of-news-on-facebook/>.

*This article was submitted as a memo assignment for the course "Current Issues of Journalism" at the University of Illinois.

Published: By: Manu Ferreira - 2/23/2022 03:29:00 PM

The new newsrooms

It has been very interesting for me to read and learn more about the new newsrooms. A couple of weeks ago, a friend asked me about the future of journalism. In Brazil, 12 big media organizations closed in 2021, and many magazines and centennial newspapers have stopped their print version to become online outlets. Despite the costs and financial issues, we also talked about how to make newsworthy content in an age where information comes from many different sources and social media in real-time. 

Credit: Pixabay

My answer was that to stand out, journalists and newsrooms have to engage more with the audience, know their needs, and address the information directly to them. I haven’t made that connection yet, but now I notice how it relates to local and nonprofit news, as well as activist journalism.

I realized how powered the local news is to connect us to our community and neighbors and give voice to what wouldn’t be covered by the big media. Unfortunately, according to The U.S. News Deserts Database, 1,800 communities in the US have lost their local newsroom since 2004. Besides, the article “The death knell for local newspapers? It’s perilously close” by Margaret Sullivan published in The Washington Post mentioned that more than 2,000 local newspapers have gone out of business in the last 15 years. 

That contributes to a less informed public, which leads to less civic engagement and public polarization – and it is exactly what we can see both here and in Brazil. 

That is why nonprofit newsrooms are so important and are helping to fill these gaps. They have been producing content focused on one or a few society’s problems, providing in-depth coverage, and also opening space for an inclusive and diverse staff. Another positive point is that they are in essence trustful, nonpartisan and focused on facts, and transparent about their funding and commercial media. 

All that work seems to be promising. Audiences grew and journalism has served more people as third-party outlets published the content produced by nonprofit news organizations. In addition, the number of nonprofit outlets has been increased at an average pace of a dozen or more a year since 2008. 

Activism Journalism

In my opinion, one of the reasons they are growing and reaching more people is because of activism journalism. I agree with Gwen Lister when she says here that activism can be combined with journalism, in terms of causes, whatever those causes may be. The public likes to see their stories, struggles, and problems on media; they want to feel represented. 

Credit: Pixabay

I see it similarly as employing bias in journalism. Everyone has a bias, but it doesn’t mean that when producing content, a journalist won’t follow the objective process of journalism. 

An activist journalist can be subjective when choosing things to cover but verify the information and follow fair practices and writing rules. 

To sum up, I would highlight Gwen Lister’s opinion about one of the challenges of journalism today. “We mustn’t let our standards slip because of the digital tsunami and social media onslaught that is pointing people in the direction of entertainment and clickbait.” 

As I answered my friend when we are discussing the future of journalism, we need to break through those challenges (social media, mis- and disinformation) with serious journalism because it makes a real difference in people’s lives. 

References:

Kohli, Anisha 2022, ‘We wanted to be the voice of the voiceless people of Namibia’, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, accessed 18 February 2022, <https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2022/02/we-wanted-to-be-the-voice-of-the-voiceless-people-of-namibia/>.

Sullivan, Margareth 2019, The death knell for local newspapers? It’s perilously close, The Washington Post, accessed 18 February 2022, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-death-knell-for-local-newspapers-its-perilously-close/2019/11/21/e82bafbc-ff12-11e9-9518-1e76abc088b6_story.html>.

*This article was submitted as a memo assignment for the course "Current Issues of Journalism" at the University of Illinois.

Published: By: Manu Ferreira - 2/18/2022 02:42:00 PM

Illinois’s Public High Schools Will Teach Media Literacy to Students

In an age when fake news, misinformation, and disinformation are currently transforming into a bigger problem for society, the ability to analyze and understand media is more than necessary. 

Credit: Getty Images

Last year, Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a law requiring Illinois’s public high schools to teach media literacy. The state became the first one in the country to follow such instruction.

Classes will start in the 2022-2023 school year. Students will learn how to verify the information they consume from various mediums, including digital, audio, visual, and print.

As soon as the bill was passed, the Colleges of Media and Education of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign teamed up to assist teachers to integrate media analysis and production into their classes. They are also helping to build a critical media literacy curriculum for schools. 

“Many of us in the College of Media has been working on media literacy-related research and teaching in the last several years,” affirmed Professor Stephanie Craft, head of the Department of Journalism. 

“When we heard about the new law, we wanted to be able to turn that work into action. Teaming up with curriculum and instruction experts in the College of Education seemed an ideal way to do that," said Craft.

The team has created the Initiative for Media Education Inquiry and Action (IMEDIA), which is formed by faculty members and doctoral students.

In June, IMEDIA will launch a pilot program on campus to find out what teachers have been doing in the area of media literacy and to help them integrate its components into their curriculum. It will be a three-day workshop, from 27th to 29th, for local teachers and potentially for teachers across the state.

“The end goal is quite simple. We want all of our students to be prepared to be critical media consumers,” explained Professor Sarah McCarthey, head of the Department of Curriculum & Instruction.

Credit: Jim Meadows/Illinois Newsroom

*This article was published on the UI7 Newsroom website.

Published: By: Manu Ferreira - 2/16/2022 12:31:00 PM

Covering “Fake News” and disinformation

It is interesting to observe how the term “fake news” was created and how worldwide it became. Although the expression was first used by Donald Trump to undervalue unfavorable news about him, it turned into a much bigger problem that occurs in many different countries. And they all nominate it as fake news as well. 

Credit: Pixabay

The first point I recognized as important about this subject is to wrongly call it “fake news”. As Claire Wardle from First Draft said here, we have to be clear when we use that term. “Are we talking about disinformation? Are we talking about misinformation? Are we talking about pollution? Are we talking about propaganda?”. Otherwise, if we don’t be direct about it, we are just going to endorse the battle against the news industry and contribute to the generalized skepticism towards it reaffirming that it sells false information. 

Secondly, is the effect fake news has on making people believe in falsehoods, how it has changed their perception about truth, and their opinion of the importance of the news, of being well informed. The fact that part of the audience is dropping some outlets and consuming less information is a relevant risk to the media environment. Regardless of whether it is because they don’t like it or if that contradicts their bias, having a non-informed population is harmful to society overall. 

Propaganda and advertising

Speaking of disinformation, a topic that also highlighted to me was the use of propaganda and advertising in the form of news articles on media outlets. They look exactly the same, with headlines, photos, and polished writing, but are created by, or on behalf of, a paying advertiser. As a blog and magazine reader, I have seen thousands of these ads and haven’t given much value to them because I knew they weren’t 100% truthful. However, many people do not have the same understanding I do. 

Therefore, reading and thinking about it made me realize how this strategy called “native advertising”, but also tagged as “partner post” or “sponsored content”, can be prejudicial and deceive the public. Research studies have shown that those labels are ineffective at helping readers distinguish between an editorial and an advertising type of content. 

As an example, I will quote Michelle A. Amazeen’s article (Researchers looked at nearly 3,000 native ads across five years. Here’s what they found) published on Nieman Lab. 

“Philip Morris International, the tobacco company, ran a native advertising campaign across many media outlets, including The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Reuters, and The Washington Post (…) about the ‘disinformation campaigns that muddy the truth’ regarding the benefits of vaping products while themselves muddying the truth.” 

Another concern is that this kind of text is made by journalists. Many media companies have now content studios just to create native advertising in the name of corporate clients. It is understandable that a company needs money to survive and that it comes mainly from ads. Nevertheless, they should be responsible for the kind of content they publish and aware that it also might influence real journalism. 

Lastly, I want to rebound on Claire Wardle’s opinion about the challenge for the next two years. In 2017 she said it was “going to be a mixture of new technologies and how manipulation and disinformation work on those platforms and through those technologies.” By now, in 2022 – five years later, it seems like the challenge she mentioned is still pertinent and will last longer in the future.

References:

Graham, David A. 2019, Some Real News About Fake News, The Atlantic, accessed 13 February 2022, <https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/fake-news-republicans-democrats/591211/>.

Wang, Shan 2017, The scale of misinformation online is global. First Draft is pushing for more collaboration — and more research — as an antidote, Nieman Lab, accessed 13 February 2022, <https://www.niemanlab.org/2017/11/the-scale-of-misinformation-online-is-global-first-draft-is-pushing-for-more-collaboration-and-more-research-as-an-antidote/>

Berman, Nina 2017, The Victims of Fake News, Columbia Journalism Review, accessed 13 February 2022, <https://www.cjr.org/special_report/fake-news-pizzagate-seth-rich-newtown-sandy-hook.php>.

*This article was submitted as a memo assignment for the course "Current Issues of Journalism" at the University of Illinois.

Published: By: Manu Ferreira - 2/11/2022 02:17:00 PM