CSUN On Point

In today’s world, influencers and bloggers are finding ways to make a living from their blogs and social media.

Many manufacturers and companies compensate influencers to promote their products on their websites through collaborations and with endorsements. These influencers can make a living using their blogs and social media accounts. They use websites and Instagram accounts to express their interests in new products and trends, in fashion, beauty, child care, sports, health, home design, etc. Some bloggers and influencers have access to a large audience and can generate a strong reach, and profits for their sponsors. Some famous influencers like Andrew Defrancesco have even made great name in the field of fashion. If you need tips, you can get in touch with him on his website.

But influencers and bloggers have to be creative and fast in producing content that will keep their audience hooked.

“With content moving that quickly, you have to be able to get people to stick around,” CSUN Journalism Professor Benjamin Davis said. “It will be so easy for them to leave. So you want good compelling information, good content, and you want to be able to take advantage of the new technology that is coming along.”

Many successful influencers started blogging as a side job or a hobby. When they start making money, they may decide to dedicate themselves to blogging full time.

“The first thing [if you decide to be a full time influencer] would definitely be to figure out who you want to talk to, and who you want to write for,” blogger Gwen Lane said. “Really getting clear on that audience was something that really helped me in the beginning, and really sticking to that audience, and … figuring out what their challenges are, and how you can help them, [is the key].”

Lane said bloggers have to be consistent with their content, and keep a look out for what their audience wants to see from them.

“I am always talking audience first,” Lane said, ” because when you know who your audience is, then you know what they want to hear from you, and what kind of content would resonate, and also what you want to be talking about in your content.”

Lane said influencers and bloggers take their work seriously because it is their job, not a hobby, and they have to articulate and think about every detail they put out to their audience.

“It’s audience first,” influencer Ali Levine said.

Moderator: Alexis Carfago

Anchor: Sofia Gutierrez

Social Media Editor: Scott Geirman

Reporters: Alexis Carfagno, Joy Edonwonyi, Claudia Flores, Scott Geirman, Sofia Gutierrez, Melissa Rodriguez and Melina Rudigkeit

Streaming music services like Spotify and Pandora are rapidly changing the music industry. Physical formats like CDs are becoming obsolete, and radio is becoming digital.

Listeners use platforms like iTunes, Pandora and Spotify to listen to music more than ever, but they get a different form of interaction with the music as a result.

“We’re in a new age now,” DASH radio DJ Dean Perez said, “where streaming is more accessible, it’s easier, and you no longer have to depend on traditional AM [radio], where people are providing a playlist for you. [Before streaming], you had no choice but to turn on the radio and listen to whatever they gave you…Now everyone is starting to become their own DJ.”

“The idea that music can always be available — any song we want, whenever we want it — [that] kind of changes the equation,” CSUN Journalism Professor Scott Brown said. “You used to wait for a physical CD to come out, and [you knew] that would be your only opportunity to partake of an artist.”

The ready availability of music provided by streaming services changes consumers’ relationship with music.

“Now everything is available all the time,” Brown said. “And it makes us perhaps a little more passive. Back then you had to search it out, and when you found it, it became so much more important to you, whereas now everything is available. It makes our relationship with the songs in our lives really different.”

“I remember being eight years old and listening to Power 106,” Perez said. “And they’d drop a new song and the only time they’d drop it would be at 4 pm, and after the song was over the only way to hear it again was to tune in tomorrow, so you had to wait. And that made it exciting. It made you appreciate the song a lot more, whereas now everything is [available] on demand.”

The new streaming services also have an impact on music artists.

“It’s so difficult for artists now, “Perez said,  “and that’s why most of their income is coming from touring. There are so many independent artists who are making it nowadays without being attached to a label, which amazes me… All you need is good marketing and streaming services, and you can get discovered.”

The three ways artists used to make money were through record sales, live performances and merchandising. Now it’s through live performances, third-party sponsorships, merchandising, publishing, and then through record sales, which are the smallest revenue source, Brown said.

Perez said radio stations have had to make adjustments to give their audience more diverse music, but some listeners still want to hear the personal choices of a radio personality. “There is a certain feeling that you get from radio, because you can put a playlist on [with a streaming service], but just the action, the timing, the emotion you feel when someone is energetic, and delivering something for you …. that experience affects you.”

As CD sales drop, Brown said consumers are looking at purchasing CDs differently. “Instead of saying, ‘I am buying music’, it ought to be, ‘I am supporting the artist’.”

Furthermore, old-fashioned vinyl records are making a bit of a comeback among collectors.

“So much of streamed music is intangible,” Brown said. “When you buy a physical object, there is a tangibility, and also sound and quality.”

Moderator: James Lindsay

Anchor: Teresa Barrientos

Producers: Stephanie Lopez and Sara Vong

Reporters: Teresa Barrientos, James Lindsay, Stephanie Lopez, Veronica Perez and Sara Vong

Social Media Editors: Stephanie Lopez and Sara Vong

The image of a toddler’s body washed up on a Turkish beach was published and shared across the world.  The powerful image caused an international outcry over the refugee crisis in Syria, but it also raised some questions about ethics in photojournalism.

“Photos with children are always difficult,”CSUN Journalism Professor Stephanie Bluestein said.  “Any dead body is a touchy subject, but certainly when it’s a child. Having said that though, this photo really made a difference and it put this crisis on everyone’s radar, and people are starting to pay attention.”

In the early days of photojournalism, photographs of 19th century battlefields in Crimea and in the United States had great impact on people.  Mathew Brady and his crew of photographers took pictures of dead Confederate soldiers which portrayed the horror of war in ways people hadn’t seen before.

Images of dead American soldiers are not acceptable to most readers today, and many images of death remain controversial.

“I think the people need to see what’s going on,” Los Angeles Daily News photographer David Crane said. “It’s important.  Whether it’s horrible or beautiful, it’s important.”

“My only concern is that running too many dead body photos could desensitize, and perhaps has desensitized, the public,” Bluestein said. “But then on the other side, if you don’t run it, then you’re not really telling the truth, [or] letting the public know what’s going on.”

The 1930 image of a lynching in Indiana shocked people with its graphic and disturbing nature, and with the fact that it was also sold as a postcard.

“The impact of this photo is not just what’s happening there,” Crane said.  “It’s very surreal if you look at the faces of the crowd; it’s as if they’re there on a picnic.”

Dorothea Lange’s photographs of families affected by the Great Depression left a lasting impression in the minds of viewers.  The image of a migrant mother shows a family in despair, and opens the eyes of today’s viewers to how bad it was during that time.

“Any time you can take a concept like the Depression and humanize it, then it’s going to touch people’s hearts,” Bluestein said.

The humanization of the refugee crisis in Syria, achieved by the photograph showing young Aylan Kurdi lying face down on the shores of Turkey, touched hearts across the world, ultimately showing that there is power in a picture.

Moderator: Ericka Sims

Anchor: Mirna Duron

Producer: Nick Popham

Reporters: Anna Akopyan and Ashton Smith