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(https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-how-snapchat-built-a-business/)

This image illustrates the various ways that Snapchat makes it money. It is funny how they have all of these forms of income, yet, they are losing money. As stated before in a previous post, due to the high demand of users on Snapchat, they are constantly having to use the money they are making to buy more storage space for pictures, videos, advertisements, etc…

I was unable to find more information when looking deeper into who works at Snapchat and what they are being paid. It would be interesting to know these details considering they amount of money they are losing when buying more photo space.

I believe one of the main reasons that Snapchat is valued so high (about $22 million) even thought it is constantly losing money, is because so many companies are investing (along with personal investors) and paying for advertisements to get their word out to teens and the youth to educate them with both old and new media which can be referred to back in the chart above.

When one thinks of Snapchat they typically think of teens taking selfies. This is in fact very true. The youth plays a major role in being part of the 161 million daily active users. On average, there are 2.5 billion Snapchats sent per day which was last updated on February 2, 2017. In 2014, so this statistic is continuously growing from here, 77% if college students were using Snapchat to send pictures to their peers and document their daily lives.

The statistics above alone show the major influence and impact that Snapchat has on youth today. The majority of youth today feel the need to document everything around them. If there is a rainbow they will make that their story. If there is a protest going on in their town, they will make it their story as well. This now relate to Snapchat’s influence on the media and the news. Snapchat has a discover page that had multiple sponsors that have daily updates on various news sites such as The  New York Times, CNN, and The Washington Post. On the other hand, looking at more of the entertainment side of news, there is a discover page for People, Cosmopolitan, Vogue along with so much more. Each college campus also has a section where students can post about updates that occur on campus. Some are entertaining while others are more informational.

Looking at all these statics and amount of people that use Snapchat one would think it is making a lot of money. Well the answer is no, it is not. Snapchat is free first of all, along with many of the other social media apps like Facebook and Instagram. Unlike those, Snapchat losses a lot of money. One of the major reasons is because they need to constantly buy more storage because of all the pictures, videos and messages that are going through Snapchat by the second. It is in fact bringing in revenue by selling to advertisers so they are able to publicize their product and make different geotags but they are losing more money than they are making. Overall, the company is a potential risk factor.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38850229 (click to watch video)

The rapid change in how people access and consume news media, especially through the rise of social media, the line between news and entertainment has blurred. With an exponentially increasing amount of choices and growing competition for attention online, the stage has been set to allow satire to dominate the chorus of dissent in the face of modern adversity. The rise of political satire has made the news far more accessible to a hungry audience. “Political humor at least molds a more informed public and at best increases political involvement and excitement.” Now as the Trump administration, which got a boost to victory with the sensational way the media covered his “viral” campaign, has been taking unprecedented action throughout the government and blatantly lying and pushing false narratives, a kind of war with the media has been underway.

Trump considers the media the opposition party. With his administration successfully proving that facts do not make a difference on how people feel and therefore what they believe, it has become easy to turn the news media into the enemy. The media, however, has handled dealing with what Trump says in very inconsistent ways as the role of a journalist changes. The complete lack of trust in the media and the growing perception of bias as ethics change, it is difficult to find the best way to handle someone like Trump, a celebrity personality combining entertainment and governance.

Media outlets originally viewed the outrageous way Trump came onto the political scene as a circus. It was a way to feed the 24-hour news cycle and the entertainment value to the shocking occurrences drove up the views, the most important thing for modern media. The media did not take trump seriously but rolled in the ratings, with Les Moonves (one of the most powerful CEOs in the media) saying, “It may not be good for America, but it is good for CBS.” CBS’s Late Show, with their host Stephen Colbert who earned that job after creating one of the most watched political satires of all time, is the number one voice in late night comedy, because of spending most of his time talking about Trump.

Now, more traditional media outlets have been changing their tone, becoming much harsher towards the action of the administration now that Trump is in office. The media has to take what the President of the United States says seriously, if not the candidate. This has turned them into the opposition party, but it is seen as too little too late by those looking to boldly resist Trump. Late night comedy has become the most successful voice to speak out against Trump. This is due to the power of satire and the way it can “cut through the bullshit” like nothing else.

The power of satire as a critical weapon is seen throughout history and the world. Bassem Youssef, dubbed the John Stewart of Egypt, has run the first Internet-to-TV political satire program in the Middle East. His critique of the authoritarian regime governing his country has led to young people standing up and has been a tool to energize and inspire the protest movement. Youssef recently had to flee Egypt with this family because of the potential retaliation to his dissent. The comparison of him to the American Jon Stewart, the godfather of political satire when he helmed the Daily Show, shows the importance of satire to Democracy as a whole. Being able to exaggerate the absurdity in the world around you, a new kind of perspective becomes clear. Humor is not only a way to make it accessible and relatable, but also a way to reflect reality and draw conclusions from the context and narrative thread of a story. In this post-fact, viral world, satire is one of the ways people can still find the light at the end of the tunnel.

Brian Eckelkamp

Living in the Information Age has provided never before seen ways of getting and staying connected as well as unprecedented challenges to the ways we consume media. More traditional media outlets and the massive cable media machine have been dramatically declining as an endless range of newer online options began to compete intensely for attention in the fast paced 24/7 information consuming landscape. The major reason for this decline has been the lack of trust people have in the media. Only 6% of people have “great confidence” in the press. This has sent more and more people to social media and other online sources to find newer alternatives to get their information, as 87% of people get their news from Facebook.

Everything about the way people consume media has been changing, especially as the younger generations are the ones leading the charge into the online universe. With this change comes the need to reevaluate the standards and ethics that news reporting requires. The old role journalists had as “gatekeepers” is now gone, since the flood of information is so overwhelming and available, there is no way for them to be a gate to it. The must now become “referees” to the information that is out there. Clear and reliable reporting is difficult in the face of the need to go “viral” with the quickest and most up-to-date story that can gain the highest views and be the loudest voice in a crowded bubble. Journalists have a responsibility to democracy however, that these new media habits are dangerous towards. This is why evaluating who is considered a journalist now that everyone has a megaphone into the world is extremely important.

Bias and truth are very important aspects to evaluate as information becomes so widespread and available. There is no single “objective truth,” especially in reporting. Being able to recognize the different ways bias appears is important since every piece of information consumed was created by someone with some kind of intention. Alternative forms of media can provide different sides to the story, giving voices and commentary that is often ignored in the bigger outlets. Bias is not inherently wrong unless there is an intention to deceive or influence with misinformation. Simply providing a point of view perspective could be important to the story as well as defending the facts from sides that simply have a different political motive is a part of the purpose of a journalist. Identifying ethics of new media starts with recognize where the information is coming from and why it exists. In a free democracy and the age of free-flowing information, it is up to us to ensure the information we discover is accurate and understand the context it was created in.

Brian Eckelkamp

Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown are their names. The co-founders of the popular smartphone app called Snapchat. Spiegel and Murphy are now worth about $4 billion each. While attending Stanford University, the college students thought, I wish the pictures I was sending to girls would disappear after I send them. They then had an epiphany: we should create an app that does this!

When it originally launched, its name was Picaboo and had about 127 followers within the first 3 months. Drama emerged between the 3 co-founders with Brown on one side and Murphy and Spiegel on the other eventually kicking Brown out and leaving him with nothing.

Later on, in the fall of 2011 Spiegel and Murphy knew the name needed to be changed and that is when the name Snapchat popped into their minds! Within a year, and mainly by word of mouth, Snapchat now had about 100,000 users. At this point, Murphy has graduated by Spiegel was still in college. Once they had an investment from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Spiegel dropped out of Stanford weeks before graduating.

Around Christmas time of 2012, Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, was launching a new feature on Facebook called, Poke, which only gave more spotlight to Snapchat and it was soon forgotten about. No wonder, I have never even heard of this version of Poke on Facebook. This only made Spiegel and Murphy more well known and richer after that small obstacle, so many people were signing up to use Snapchat!

Zuckerberg offered to buy out Snapchat for $3 billion and it backfired when Spiegel and Murphy refused the offer. Overtime, big brands are taking interest in Snapchat and being featured on its Discovery section on the app where various news sources are being advertised. Which bring us to today. Murphy and Spiegel have reached a market in which no one has ever touched before. They are both, separately, worth about $4 billion. Many want to invest thousands and this company and the power structure of Snapchat will continuously grow into a social media empire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNmGfVHRmVg

Ryan Breslow

Snapchat allows you to talk to friends by using pictures as well as view stories from various people from around the world! It is an app that allows you to live in the moment and share your experiences in the now. Filters and various geotags, depending on where you are in the world, make Snapchat just so much more exciting! It takes taking regular everyday pictures to a whole new level.

When first starting to research this topic, most of the findings were not surprising. Most of the information was stating how Snapchat is on the rise and by not only youths but youth teaching their parents how to use this app as well! Most of the information I am finding was relatively the same. This made finding various sources with different information on Snapchat a little difficult. Snapchat is such a new platform and it is only going to be growing from here.

Today’s youth are addicted to the different filters that are constantly being changed daily with new and interesting ones always being offered. They attract the youth, and even many adults, in todays society. Geofilters are also a very exciting feature of snapchat that allows you to show your location by adding a fun and exciting designs. During the political campaign, the candidates used geofilters to help snapchat users, mainly young adults, to remember to vote. This is just one example of a way that people are able to customize them and make it fun while still sharing an important message.