Unit 25: Produce Copy for Interactive Media

This unit covers the use of text editors. These are programs that are used to edit plain .txt files. The text editors nowadays a provided with every operating system (such as Notepad for Windows), and can be used to create ebsites with coding such as HTML and CSS in the Creative Digital Media industry.
.txt files are very different to word processor files such as Microsoft Word as with text editors, for example:

• Plain text files are represented and edited by showing all characters as they are in the file, this makes text files increasingly useful for programming for websites and configuration. All you can do on a notepad in terms of functions are things like cut, copy and paste and undo/redo. Text files also used to be used for detailed instructions and user guides, but are alot less popular now as word processor files have taken over and also the world wide web has become a big part of tuition nowadays with YouTube and Google etc
• Documents that have been created by a word processor such as Microsoft Word normally contain application specific characters that enable different functions such as bold,italic,fonts, columns,tables and the like. These functions are now a default part of a word processor, which gives them a certain edge over text files if you just want to create a document that is not needed for coding, such as HTML/CSS etc. Word processor programs can usually edit a plain text file and save it back in the text file format. However, one must take care to tell the program that this is what is wanted. Specifying the save format is especially important in cases such as source code, HTML, and configuration and control files. If left to the program's default, the file will contain those "special characters" unique to the word processor's file format, and will not be handled correctly by the utility the files were intended for. 

What word processors can not do for you is properly proof read your work. The computer can correct spelling mistakes and punctuation errors etc, but sometimes the spelling could be in American format, such as if you put in "aluminium" the computer could 'correct' it by putting it into the proper american spelling which is "aluminum" missing out the 'I'. This is something that only you can correct by proof-reading your work, scanning through and if you need to, reading out loud to make sure certain sentences or paragraphs sound correct. If you rely on the computer to handle all of your mistakes, you would end up with a document that would not look particularly polished and professional, so in order to make the document give a professional look, you are required to manually proof read your work as if a client seen a document that was poorly written with spelling and punctuation errors, they would easily be put off by you and could turn to another person and could potentially give you a bad review which is definitely not what you would want as it damages your reputation that you will have to get back at some point and could damage your business.

The next part of this unit concerns Media Ethics, which is a part of applied ethics which deals with certain standards of media concerning TV/film/theatre (the 'entertainment industry'), print media and the world wide web. First of all i will talk about the ethics of Journalism. Journalism has one of the most defined branches of media ethics, mainly because it is the most frequently taught in schools of journalism.
There are three topics of journalism ethics. These are:

• News Manipulation
• Truth
• Conflict

1. News manipulation works both ways as News can manipulate and be manipulated. Many people try to manipulate the news media, examples of these are governments. Governments are allowed censorship (they control what the news can talk about) so that nothing can be said that would damage peoples privacy, or a countries reputation (such as propaganda).
2. Truth covers four different qualities, which are public interest, privacy, fantasy and taste.
   
   Public interest concerns the news which the public are interested in, but there is a limit to what can be published, as top secret government information cannot be shown to the public.
   
   Privacy covers the details of public figures which is a large part of the media. Publication is not justified simply because the information is true.
   
   Fantasy covers entertainment, which is a goal of certain parts of the media's content. This draws in audiences by mixing truth with fantasy.
   
   Taste covers certain debateable topics such as war and disasters, which are situations that may not be of everyone's taste and desire. There needs to be a balance of how far you can go before you start to intrude on the audience's feelings and sensitivities to report the truth.
3. Conflict covers the law, certain journalistic ethics may conflict with the law concerning confidential news sources (such as witnesses) who might want to remain anonymous. There is also a question on how far you can go before you go too far just to get a news story such as trespassing, stealing etc