Web Excursions 2021-10-18

新闻实验室：鱿鱼游戏

• 有意思的是，朝鲜的宣传机器也发文章赞扬了《鱿鱼游戏》。

  • 文章说，这部剧反映了资本主义社会的现实——在这样高度不平等的社会里，人被当成棋子一样。

  • 此前，朝鲜的媒体也赞扬过获得奥斯卡的韩国电影《寄生虫》，虽然朝鲜人看不到Netflix，也看不到奥斯卡。

• 生产这部剧的正是资本主义的公司，而且可以说是全球扩张的资本主义巨头。而这部剧通过批判资本主义，让全世界那么多人觉得感同身受，最后直接受益的还是这家资本主义公司和它的投资人。也就是说，资本主义似乎并不惧怕对自身的批判，甚至能通过批判自己，进一步发展自身的利益。

• 有一个概念可以用来描述这种现象，那就是hegemony，翻译成“霸权”，或者是“领导权”、“支配权”。

  • 这里的霸权，并不是那种依靠武力、暴力来维持的，而是在文化和精神上，让人“心甘情愿”接受的。

  • 当然，要让人主动同意和接受，就需要非常重要的条件，那就是：

  • 让人觉得现存秩序是正常的、自然的、不可避免的、永不改变的，并且最终对所有人都是更好的。

• 在电视机前看完《鱿鱼游戏》的观众并不会揭竿而起，去推翻资本主义制度，

  • 因为他们缺乏一种霸权之外的想象力，

  • 他们有的庆幸自己不是负债累累的人，有的即便感到痛苦，但也很难想象另一种更好的社会，最终只能把重担压回自己身上，让自己承担一切。

• 一个很好笑的例子是：在职场社交平台LinkedIn上面，已经有人根据《鱿鱼游戏》写出了职场鸡汤。

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Apple’s Privacy Changes Create Windfall for Its Own Advertising Business by ft.com

• Apple’s advertising business has more than tripled its market share

  • in the six months after it introduced privacy changes to iPhones

  • that obstructed rivals, including Facebook, from targeting ads at consumers.

• Apple’s in-house business is now responsible for 58 per cent of all iPhone app downloads that result from clicking on an advert. A year ago, its share was 17 per cent.

• [It is] estimate[d] that marketing spending on mobile apps for both iPhones and Android phones was $58bn in 2019 and would double to $118bn by next year.

• Apple, meanwhile, is likely to earn $5bn from its advertising business this fiscal year, and $20bn-a-year within three years

• Some mobile advertisers, dismayed by the lack of visibility on iPhones, are now spending more of their budget on the Android market

• the precision with which it was possible to focus ads on users through Apple’s advertising service jarred with the company’s rhetoric around privacy.

• the “retargeting” tool, a service offered by Apple to let companies follow users to re-engage with them at a future date

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How A/B testing can (and can’t) improve your headline writing » Nieman Journalism Lab

• Many large newsrooms take advantage of this practice to optimize their traffic.

  • The New York Times tests headlines extensively on its homepage,

  • as does The Boston Globe, which also experiments with visuals and layout.

  • Analytics tools offering A/B testing, such as Chartbeat, now make it widely available to a range of newsrooms.

• Beyond testing individual headlines, newsrooms try to use A/B testing data to draw out general guidelines around effective headline writing. In prior work, we talked to editors with all kinds of data-driven headline recommendations: including salient quotes and numbers, starting explanatory headlines with “how” or “why,” referencing important people and organizations by name, and others.

• A/B test your headlines to find the right one to optimize traffic in the given context and moment,

• but be cautious about trying to divine general writing lessons from those tests.

• Even if a writing style does well in tests, it might not generalize across the whole newsroom.

• A test can hinge on factors entirely outside an editor’s control,

  • leading to faulty interpretations and bad recommendations.

• Headline testing is a powerful tool,

  • but it’s most effective when paired with a deep understanding of your audience.