13 Comments
Gordon, J. (2007). The mobile phone and the public sphere: mobile phone usage in three critical situations. Convergence 13(3), 307-319.
The Gordon article looks at the influence of the mobile phone on the public sphere – especially focusing on it affects on news agendas, gatekeepers and definers.
· There is a growing sense of immediacy and community supplied to users of internet enabled mobile devices. The users consume and create online content by allowing them to document real-time events, and communicate within their community free of the constraints of time and space.
· This citizen created news content is then remediated and filtered by mainstream news for use by mainstream news services. To me this much like the platforms as discussed in last week’s lecture where the traditional news outlets are providing a platform for user created content.
· This though indicates to me that mainstream media are still setting the news agenda and gatekeeping much of the original news content outside of some examples such as Salam Pax.
· Mobile phone use can circumvent censorship and news blackouts as seen in the recent political conflicts in Middle East where mobile internet and social networking was highlighted as tools used in the organisation of protest rallies, and also a tool for documenting events at these rallies.
· Gordon uses three examples of relatively recent major news events – SARS (2003), South East Asian Tsunami (2004) and the London Bombings (2005). These are all before the advent of web2.0 and also the popularization of social networking so the results found might be more pronounced into day’s highly networked society.
· SARS:
§ During the SARS outbreak in china people in the affected areas used mobile phones to share information about the outbreak that was being withheld by official government channels denying them live update information. Thus ordinary people had the power to publish and distribute information via networked mobile devices.
§ The incident in Hong Kong where a teenager mocked up SARS alert is an example of the ease at which an individual can publish and distribute information, and why it is important for the audience to assess online publications for authenticity so they ensure they are consuming correct information
§ Both of these examples show how the new online publishing tools can be seen as a threat to established power structures unable to contain the flow of information and news through traditional gatekeeping methods.
· S.E. ASIAN TSUNAMI:
§ Mobile phones used to record and distribute video and images and communications within affected areas.
§ The real-time images taken of the Tsunami event in south east Asia in 2004 by citizen journalists using mobile devices would have been almost impossible for a traditional news organisation to capture unless the happened to be in the disaster area at the time.
§ Mainstream media them remediate and gate keep the this information for use in its publications
§ Disaster response capable on a global scale via communications networks
· LONDON BOMBINGS:
§ Images taken via mobile devices were taken only moments after the bombings and distributed – some were too graphic for regular news
§ Mainstream media used eye witness accounts in conjunction with images and video from citizen journalism and then edited the two together to form a filtered news story that otherwise would have to been possible to give a fuller picture of the event through the combination of information – this is a version of the “wisdom of crowds” where information from several sources painted a fuller picture than anyone individual ever could.
§ This information was also used by investigators into the event further broadening the use of such information and broadening the knowledge base.
· Mobile technologies can contribute to the public sphere, and citizen journalism where:
§ The ruling power hegemony allows them to do so
§ Mass public communication systems have been put in place and implemented effectively
§ Sudden unexpected events occur and only citizen journalist will be in place to document them
· In reflection, media content created and distributed by mobile devices free of the gatekeeping and filtering found in the mainstream media allowing for a more transparent accurate news cycle.
They can also be subject to government restrictions, and technological restrictions, where mobile content is either monitored or blocked by, or networks may be redirected or overloaded when major events happen and they are required for the management of an emergency response.
The paper touched on the comparisons on the gatekeeping of mobile content when it discussed the filtering of citizen created images that were too graphic – but can still be found on unfiltered news sites such as blogs.
Finally I think the information gathered from these sources is contributing to the overall reporting of events by mainstream media, as mentioned earlier, where they use citizen created content to form a filtered news story that otherwise would have to been possible to give a full picture of the event through this information which allows for a version of the “wisdom of crowds” where information from several sources allow for a greater sum of knowledge than anyone individual ever could present.
The Gordon article looks at the influence of the mobile phone on the public sphere – especially focusing on it affects on news agendas, gatekeepers and definers.
· There is a growing sense of immediacy and community supplied to users of internet enabled mobile devices. The users consume and create online content by allowing them to document real-time events, and communicate within their community free of the constraints of time and space.
· This citizen created news content is then remediated and filtered by mainstream news for use by mainstream news services. To me this much like the platforms as discussed in last week’s lecture where the traditional news outlets are providing a platform for user created content.
· This though indicates to me that mainstream media are still setting the news agenda and gatekeeping much of the original news content outside of some examples such as Salam Pax.
· Mobile phone use can circumvent censorship and news blackouts as seen in the recent political conflicts in Middle East where mobile internet and social networking was highlighted as tools used in the organisation of protest rallies, and also a tool for documenting events at these rallies.
· Gordon uses three examples of relatively recent major news events – SARS (2003), South East Asian Tsunami (2004) and the London Bombings (2005). These are all before the advent of web2.0 and also the popularization of social networking so the results found might be more pronounced into day’s highly networked society.
· SARS:
§ During the SARS outbreak in china people in the affected areas used mobile phones to share information about the outbreak that was being withheld by official government channels denying them live update information. Thus ordinary people had the power to publish and distribute information via networked mobile devices.
§ The incident in Hong Kong where a teenager mocked up SARS alert is an example of the ease at which an individual can publish and distribute information, and why it is important for the audience to assess online publications for authenticity so they ensure they are consuming correct information
§ Both of these examples show how the new online publishing tools can be seen as a threat to established power structures unable to contain the flow of information and news through traditional gatekeeping methods.
· S.E. ASIAN TSUNAMI:
§ Mobile phones used to record and distribute video and images and communications within affected areas.
§ The real-time images taken of the Tsunami event in south east Asia in 2004 by citizen journalists using mobile devices would have been almost impossible for a traditional news organisation to capture unless the happened to be in the disaster area at the time.
§ Mainstream media them remediate and gate keep the this information for use in its publications
§ Disaster response capable on a global scale via communications networks
· LONDON BOMBINGS:
§ Images taken via mobile devices were taken only moments after the bombings and distributed – some were too graphic for regular news
§ Mainstream media used eye witness accounts in conjunction with images and video from citizen journalism and then edited the two together to form a filtered news story that otherwise would have to been possible to give a fuller picture of the event through the combination of information – this is a version of the “wisdom of crowds” where information from several sources painted a fuller picture than anyone individual ever could.
§ This information was also used by investigators into the event further broadening the use of such information and broadening the knowledge base.
· Mobile technologies can contribute to the public sphere, and citizen journalism where:
§ The ruling power hegemony allows them to do so
§ Mass public communication systems have been put in place and implemented effectively
§ Sudden unexpected events occur and only citizen journalist will be in place to document them
· In reflection, media content created and distributed by mobile devices free of the gatekeeping and filtering found in the mainstream media allowing for a more transparent accurate news cycle.
They can also be subject to government restrictions, and technological restrictions, where mobile content is either monitored or blocked by, or networks may be redirected or overloaded when major events happen and they are required for the management of an emergency response.
The paper touched on the comparisons on the gatekeeping of mobile content when it discussed the filtering of citizen created images that were too graphic – but can still be found on unfiltered news sites such as blogs.
Finally I think the information gathered from these sources is contributing to the overall reporting of events by mainstream media, as mentioned earlier, where they use citizen created content to form a filtered news story that otherwise would have to been possible to give a full picture of the event through this information which allows for a version of the “wisdom of crowds” where information from several sources allow for a greater sum of knowledge than anyone individual ever could present.
Melissa Wall, (2005). Blogs of war: weblogs as news. Journalism 6 (2), 153-72.
· The Melissa Wall reading looks at blogs as a possible new form of journalism which emphasises personalisation, audience engagement and participation via independent websites. The reading does this via research into blog genre analysis and analysing the results within the context of a post-modern world view.
· News organisations have been defined in the past as gatekeepers to new information of public interest, and determine what context this next information will be interpreted in. I think that this definition is still true with much of mass broadcasting but is changing as blogging and other publications platforms, such a social networks, allows for online communities and networks to form creating more freedom of expression, and the publication of unfiltered content and opinion. It is this spread of different viewpoints and opinions that could create a better informed “collective intelligence” as the total sum of information would be much larger, and be from a broader spectrum of society.
· Blogs are not the first time in modern history that traditional journalism has been challenged as mentioned by Wall in an example from the 1960s, due to the social conditions in that era a “new” type of journalism was seen to develop which broke the rules by becoming less objective and presenting a change in writing style. Blogs could thus be seen as part of an ongoing process of journalistic evolution which occurs to meet the needs of an ever changing society.
· Wall looks at the relationship between traditional journalism and online journalism. Wall noted that Stovall identified that the journalistic process is unlikely to change, which I agree with, but I also thin that the traditional genre of journalism will remain the same but be less commonly used – perhaps adding to the value to the genre due to its scarcity. Today’s “New Journalism” will engage in new relationships with its audience and thus be seen as more popular, but perhaps not more valuable.
· As noted by Singer “journalism is about reporting” whilst online journalism will be about engaging in discussion and thus building new ideas and concepts as part of a collective free of the traditional gatekeeping hegemonies.
· Blogging presents a new non-linear form of writing via the use of hyperlinks to link source materials to blog posts – adding credibility and authenticity to these writings. In this period of transition it is also the readers who need to alter their expectations of what is being read and how they read as they are use to reading materials in a different genre.
· Blogs offer lowered barriers to entry by allowing ordinary people to become content creators which publish and distribute globally free of the restrictions of time and space.
· Bloggers seem to not generate original material and seem to remediate news from traditional news source within their own cultural and social contexts. This can bring bloggers into conflict with copyright and IP law issues – although the written word at moment seems less of an issue in this regard and it is the use of video and audio clips which seem to cause the major concern for mainstream media. During MED104 we have discussed that writers have been traditionally allowed to reference content and use quotes freely whilst audio and video do not have the same freedoms. I wonder if in the future as blogs become portals for new journalism that these restriction maybe found to be more strongly enforced in written words also – especially if the blogosphere becomes more commercialized and thus gate kept.
· Diminishing borders which separate producers and consumers has the possibility of challenging dominant knowledge frameworks by recontextualizing knowledge.
· New Post-modern journalism could consist of more localised niche news stories that would lead to a more personalised experience due to the niche communities that would form around these and thus the gatekeepers may be credible and trusted members of these communities as seen in the case of Wikipedia
· At the moment I think there is a cross over between old and new media where are converging to form a new genre of news reporting and increasingly citizen journalist content is being used as part of the economic rationalisation of news – why have reporters in the field when the audience can create content for free and create content at the time of the event. Thus news could become a platform for citizen journalism like YouTube is a platform for video where users supply the content,
· Blogs are no longer text based and can allow prod-users publish and broadcast in several different media genres via the central hub of the blog via a convergence with video, audio, images and text in the blogosphere and thus lend themselves more to citizen journalism and the new news paradigm.
· Wall’s research found that typically a current events blog is personalized, opinionated and one-sided. I think that as readers become for accustomed to consuming the new news media genre they will increasingly become attuned to filtering blog posts for bias and imbalances, and respond via their own blog posts or comments within the blog itself as a part of a participatory culture. Thus is different from old media as it tended to try and present both sides in the one article, due to its one way communicative nature which nurtured passive consumers – something which blogs don’t have to be so concerned about as they can form two-way discussions in a community and thus each post is only a fragment of the whole story
.
· Narrative Style: The personal nature of blog posts is the “key characteristic of how they frame the news” as this adds credibility to the content.
· Audience Relations: Walls notes that blogs cultivate produce-audience relationships by providing consumers the chance to participate in the production of content, and to interact with other members of their online community thus creating a “virtual town hall”. Reflecting on this I had some concerns that over a longer period of time consumers would trend towards blogs that agreed with their viewpoint and thus find communities of likeminded people with lessening influence from conflicting communities, and thus having little crossover between cultures and actually move away from the idea of “pop cosmopolitanism” posited earlier in MED104.
· Story Forms: As mentioned earlier, Wall posits research results that Blogs generally do not report new information and thus a representative of remediations. Thus blogs are monitoring mainstream news sources and recontexualising them within bloggers personal experiences, or the collective experience of an online community, by remediating mainstream content in a new personal or social context. These remediations of course could come into conflict with current licensing paradigm of copyright. I think having mainstream media as the central hub for current event news sites negate my earlier concerns of closed niche communities forming as they will all be drawn back the central information source of the mass media news and so maybe “news cosmopolitanism” would actually occur.
· Overall I agree with Wall that as society moves into a post-modern age that journalism would also mimic these societal changes. The genre of current events blogs could be indicative of this change as they challenge the traditional concept of news. This new genre will be more personalized and transparent giving the medium credibility, with the audience being the gatekeepers of information and determiners of authenticity. I would liken this audience driven gatekeeping to the peer-review in academic circles, and in Wikipedia. In taking part in this peer review process Wall noted a quote from Rheingold – “Consumers will participate in creating what they consume” thus per review will become a part of the creation process.
This leads me back to reflect upon remediation of mainstream media and the idea that as the blogosphere becomes increasingly monetized, and there nature becomes more multimedia based, that there will be increasingly a conflict with copyright law. I would have little doubt that corporations will try and make money out of something as prolific as the blogosphere and thus I fear it may in the new-news era become increasing difficult differentiate between blog-journalism and blog-PR just as it is in mainstream news today to tell the difference between news and PR.
The opportunities of the blogosphere to build a news based collective intelligence cannot be ignored but as mentioned earlier having mainstream media as the central hub for current event news sites negate my earlier concerns of closed niche communities forming as they will all be drawn back the central information source of the mass media news and so maybe “news cosmopolitanism” would actually occur and the traditional form of journalism will survive as a valuable source of debate and also as a key to traditional media outlets maintaining at least a fair part of their existing hegemony.
· The Melissa Wall reading looks at blogs as a possible new form of journalism which emphasises personalisation, audience engagement and participation via independent websites. The reading does this via research into blog genre analysis and analysing the results within the context of a post-modern world view.
· News organisations have been defined in the past as gatekeepers to new information of public interest, and determine what context this next information will be interpreted in. I think that this definition is still true with much of mass broadcasting but is changing as blogging and other publications platforms, such a social networks, allows for online communities and networks to form creating more freedom of expression, and the publication of unfiltered content and opinion. It is this spread of different viewpoints and opinions that could create a better informed “collective intelligence” as the total sum of information would be much larger, and be from a broader spectrum of society.
· Blogs are not the first time in modern history that traditional journalism has been challenged as mentioned by Wall in an example from the 1960s, due to the social conditions in that era a “new” type of journalism was seen to develop which broke the rules by becoming less objective and presenting a change in writing style. Blogs could thus be seen as part of an ongoing process of journalistic evolution which occurs to meet the needs of an ever changing society.
· Wall looks at the relationship between traditional journalism and online journalism. Wall noted that Stovall identified that the journalistic process is unlikely to change, which I agree with, but I also thin that the traditional genre of journalism will remain the same but be less commonly used – perhaps adding to the value to the genre due to its scarcity. Today’s “New Journalism” will engage in new relationships with its audience and thus be seen as more popular, but perhaps not more valuable.
· As noted by Singer “journalism is about reporting” whilst online journalism will be about engaging in discussion and thus building new ideas and concepts as part of a collective free of the traditional gatekeeping hegemonies.
· Blogging presents a new non-linear form of writing via the use of hyperlinks to link source materials to blog posts – adding credibility and authenticity to these writings. In this period of transition it is also the readers who need to alter their expectations of what is being read and how they read as they are use to reading materials in a different genre.
· Blogs offer lowered barriers to entry by allowing ordinary people to become content creators which publish and distribute globally free of the restrictions of time and space.
· Bloggers seem to not generate original material and seem to remediate news from traditional news source within their own cultural and social contexts. This can bring bloggers into conflict with copyright and IP law issues – although the written word at moment seems less of an issue in this regard and it is the use of video and audio clips which seem to cause the major concern for mainstream media. During MED104 we have discussed that writers have been traditionally allowed to reference content and use quotes freely whilst audio and video do not have the same freedoms. I wonder if in the future as blogs become portals for new journalism that these restriction maybe found to be more strongly enforced in written words also – especially if the blogosphere becomes more commercialized and thus gate kept.
· Diminishing borders which separate producers and consumers has the possibility of challenging dominant knowledge frameworks by recontextualizing knowledge.
· New Post-modern journalism could consist of more localised niche news stories that would lead to a more personalised experience due to the niche communities that would form around these and thus the gatekeepers may be credible and trusted members of these communities as seen in the case of Wikipedia
· At the moment I think there is a cross over between old and new media where are converging to form a new genre of news reporting and increasingly citizen journalist content is being used as part of the economic rationalisation of news – why have reporters in the field when the audience can create content for free and create content at the time of the event. Thus news could become a platform for citizen journalism like YouTube is a platform for video where users supply the content,
· Blogs are no longer text based and can allow prod-users publish and broadcast in several different media genres via the central hub of the blog via a convergence with video, audio, images and text in the blogosphere and thus lend themselves more to citizen journalism and the new news paradigm.
· Wall’s research found that typically a current events blog is personalized, opinionated and one-sided. I think that as readers become for accustomed to consuming the new news media genre they will increasingly become attuned to filtering blog posts for bias and imbalances, and respond via their own blog posts or comments within the blog itself as a part of a participatory culture. Thus is different from old media as it tended to try and present both sides in the one article, due to its one way communicative nature which nurtured passive consumers – something which blogs don’t have to be so concerned about as they can form two-way discussions in a community and thus each post is only a fragment of the whole story
.
· Narrative Style: The personal nature of blog posts is the “key characteristic of how they frame the news” as this adds credibility to the content.
· Audience Relations: Walls notes that blogs cultivate produce-audience relationships by providing consumers the chance to participate in the production of content, and to interact with other members of their online community thus creating a “virtual town hall”. Reflecting on this I had some concerns that over a longer period of time consumers would trend towards blogs that agreed with their viewpoint and thus find communities of likeminded people with lessening influence from conflicting communities, and thus having little crossover between cultures and actually move away from the idea of “pop cosmopolitanism” posited earlier in MED104.
· Story Forms: As mentioned earlier, Wall posits research results that Blogs generally do not report new information and thus a representative of remediations. Thus blogs are monitoring mainstream news sources and recontexualising them within bloggers personal experiences, or the collective experience of an online community, by remediating mainstream content in a new personal or social context. These remediations of course could come into conflict with current licensing paradigm of copyright. I think having mainstream media as the central hub for current event news sites negate my earlier concerns of closed niche communities forming as they will all be drawn back the central information source of the mass media news and so maybe “news cosmopolitanism” would actually occur.
· Overall I agree with Wall that as society moves into a post-modern age that journalism would also mimic these societal changes. The genre of current events blogs could be indicative of this change as they challenge the traditional concept of news. This new genre will be more personalized and transparent giving the medium credibility, with the audience being the gatekeepers of information and determiners of authenticity. I would liken this audience driven gatekeeping to the peer-review in academic circles, and in Wikipedia. In taking part in this peer review process Wall noted a quote from Rheingold – “Consumers will participate in creating what they consume” thus per review will become a part of the creation process.
This leads me back to reflect upon remediation of mainstream media and the idea that as the blogosphere becomes increasingly monetized, and there nature becomes more multimedia based, that there will be increasingly a conflict with copyright law. I would have little doubt that corporations will try and make money out of something as prolific as the blogosphere and thus I fear it may in the new-news era become increasing difficult differentiate between blog-journalism and blog-PR just as it is in mainstream news today to tell the difference between news and PR.
The opportunities of the blogosphere to build a news based collective intelligence cannot be ignored but as mentioned earlier having mainstream media as the central hub for current event news sites negate my earlier concerns of closed niche communities forming as they will all be drawn back the central information source of the mass media news and so maybe “news cosmopolitanism” would actually occur and the traditional form of journalism will survive as a valuable source of debate and also as a key to traditional media outlets maintaining at least a fair part of their existing hegemony.
MED104 Week 10 “Make note of the blogs you visit and the features of this blogs that attract you”
14/5/2011
I only visit a handful of blogs on a regular basis. As a student I visit some of my fellow student’s blogs to discuss and review course themes and subjects and have my own study blog http://18songs.weebly.com/med104.html , and as a football fan I participate in an AFL based blogging community and have my own blog http://www.footymediawatch.com.au/ .
I am a part of and visit blogs on AFL football as it is an open community where I can speak to likeminded people on the topic of AFL football and also link to them through various social networks. The blogs I go to the most are those which have audio and video content that I can easily subscribe via iTunes, or download content from, so I am not confined to blog itself in consuming this media.
Also as mentioned social networking is also incorporated into the sites I regularly access which helps in keeping up to date with updates on each blog, or have ongoing discussions with others in the community. It also allows to have conversations in real-time as all of these online tools and platforms can be accessed by mobile devices.
It is the formation of community links, immediate and mobile communications and knowledge that their other people with similar interests to me that draws me too these blogs. They all have relatively the same structure which also makes them easy to navigate which shows some cultural norms are forming within the blogosphere. But it is the authenticity of speaking to another person in a two-way conversation, rather than reading article from a mainstream sports writer with no way of conversing with them which is the main draw card to the blogs I consume. Vis blogs we get to think and speak for ourselves via the media we publish and distribute.
I am a part of and visit blogs on AFL football as it is an open community where I can speak to likeminded people on the topic of AFL football and also link to them through various social networks. The blogs I go to the most are those which have audio and video content that I can easily subscribe via iTunes, or download content from, so I am not confined to blog itself in consuming this media.
Also as mentioned social networking is also incorporated into the sites I regularly access which helps in keeping up to date with updates on each blog, or have ongoing discussions with others in the community. It also allows to have conversations in real-time as all of these online tools and platforms can be accessed by mobile devices.
It is the formation of community links, immediate and mobile communications and knowledge that their other people with similar interests to me that draws me too these blogs. They all have relatively the same structure which also makes them easy to navigate which shows some cultural norms are forming within the blogosphere. But it is the authenticity of speaking to another person in a two-way conversation, rather than reading article from a mainstream sports writer with no way of conversing with them which is the main draw card to the blogs I consume. Vis blogs we get to think and speak for ourselves via the media we publish and distribute.
· Topics: Blogging, Citizen Journalism, Collective Intelligence
· Blogs -
o Sites like blogger took publishing online from people who understood the skills to code websites to anyone using the web.
o Lowered barriers to entry for publishing
o Participatory culture
o 2-wat communication between producers and consumers
o Active amongst many languages and cultures
o Blogs are linked to mainstream news cycles as they often review and give opinion on news from these sources
o Convergence of mainstream media and blogs may be indicative of mainstream medias effort to engage with their audiences
· Web2.0 is about participation by the audience
· In web2.0 companies build tools and frameworks for publishing and distribution -> NOT CONTENT
· Blogs & Journalism –
o Convergence and corporatization
o Sensationalism can lead to a loss of credibility
o Decline in engagement with old media (TV, Radio, Newspapers)
o Increase in the amount of time spent online
· Blogs can allow news to be presented in other contexts which can contradict mainstream media
· Through new technologies and Web2.0 platforms the audience is increasingly sharing information
· Cultural expression is freed via blogs, etc. As production and distribution of writing, audio and video is now accessible to all.
· Credibility – allows for media to be doctored and altered and thus bring into question reputation, credibility of individuals and organisations
· Axel Bruns – Gatewatching
o Bloggers may not write the news but they will review it to keep it honest and this maybe the key relationship of social media to the news when it represents a “community of interest”
· 5 Points raised by Steven Johnson:
o Mainstream Journalism will continue to play a vital role in covering events
o Bloggers will grow increasingly adept at covering specific kinds of news events and policing the interpretation of these events
o Majority of bloggers won’t be concerned with traditional news – local/niche issues
o Professional journalism will generally be of a higher standard, but there will still be poor journalists and great bloggers
o Blogs have evolved from other forms of writing and debate
· Wikis and Collective Intelligence:
o Wikipedia vs. Britannica – Equally accurate
o All reversions on Wikipedia are visible to form an historic record
o Is representative of what Clay Shirky said was a change from a “Filter then publish” model, to a “Publish then filter” model – Audience based filtering and editing
o Wikis never represent a completed product unlike print edition as they are constantly evolving each moment
· Collective Intelligence:
o “Nobody knows everything, everyone knows something, and what any given member knows is accessible to any other member upon request on an ad hoc basis”
o Thus we can all access what anyone, or everyone, knows at any moment within a collective intelligence
· Blogs -
o Sites like blogger took publishing online from people who understood the skills to code websites to anyone using the web.
o Lowered barriers to entry for publishing
o Participatory culture
o 2-wat communication between producers and consumers
o Active amongst many languages and cultures
o Blogs are linked to mainstream news cycles as they often review and give opinion on news from these sources
o Convergence of mainstream media and blogs may be indicative of mainstream medias effort to engage with their audiences
· Web2.0 is about participation by the audience
· In web2.0 companies build tools and frameworks for publishing and distribution -> NOT CONTENT
· Blogs & Journalism –
o Convergence and corporatization
o Sensationalism can lead to a loss of credibility
o Decline in engagement with old media (TV, Radio, Newspapers)
o Increase in the amount of time spent online
· Blogs can allow news to be presented in other contexts which can contradict mainstream media
· Through new technologies and Web2.0 platforms the audience is increasingly sharing information
· Cultural expression is freed via blogs, etc. As production and distribution of writing, audio and video is now accessible to all.
· Credibility – allows for media to be doctored and altered and thus bring into question reputation, credibility of individuals and organisations
· Axel Bruns – Gatewatching
o Bloggers may not write the news but they will review it to keep it honest and this maybe the key relationship of social media to the news when it represents a “community of interest”
· 5 Points raised by Steven Johnson:
o Mainstream Journalism will continue to play a vital role in covering events
o Bloggers will grow increasingly adept at covering specific kinds of news events and policing the interpretation of these events
o Majority of bloggers won’t be concerned with traditional news – local/niche issues
o Professional journalism will generally be of a higher standard, but there will still be poor journalists and great bloggers
o Blogs have evolved from other forms of writing and debate
· Wikis and Collective Intelligence:
o Wikipedia vs. Britannica – Equally accurate
o All reversions on Wikipedia are visible to form an historic record
o Is representative of what Clay Shirky said was a change from a “Filter then publish” model, to a “Publish then filter” model – Audience based filtering and editing
o Wikis never represent a completed product unlike print edition as they are constantly evolving each moment
· Collective Intelligence:
o “Nobody knows everything, everyone knows something, and what any given member knows is accessible to any other member upon request on an ad hoc basis”
o Thus we can all access what anyone, or everyone, knows at any moment within a collective intelligence
TED talk – Jimmy Wales on the creation of Wikipedia
· Wikipedia is a concept where every person in the world could have access to the sum of all human knowledge for free, and is freely sharable and adaptable as per the essence of creative commons.
· Wikipedia is written and maintained by volunteers using the wiki editing software that anyone can freely learn to use. To me this represents a strong sign of a participatory culture as proposed by Jenkins and is also an example of Suroweikis “Wisdom of Crowds” as per the video I sourced and shared in last week’s notes.
· Wikipedia’s model is one of a “not for profit” organisation that allows users to use its content for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.
· Wikipedia is funded by public donations
· Wikipedia has many articles across many languages, with only 1/3 being English; it would be interesting to see if many of these are translated to other languages so that those from other cultural backgrounds can more easily consume information from other cultures.
· Wikipedia’s organisation structure allows for minimal staff and minimal costs. In my reflection on this I considered if a global news organisation could be built on a similar model – funded by the public, with content managed by volunteers. I think an issue could be that news sites differ from encyclopaedias in that news can be opinionated and positioned within certain social contexts, whilst the information within online encyclopaedias like Wikipedia’s can be more fact based (black and white). This could cause more conflicts within the public sphere of a “wiki news” website and thus would have to be structured slightly differently I believe.
· The accuracy of the Wikipedia is equal to that found in traditional encyclopaedia media.
· Controversial topics within Wikipedia are highly edited and subject to quality control within the Wikipedia community. I see this as a form of collective gate keeping within the community which in traditional media was done by editors and publishers. In Wikipedia quality control takes place via:
§ Neutral point of view policy: similar to the objectivity found in tradition media in the early 20th century as discussed in the Wall reading. In a Wikipedia framework this allows a diverse set of people to contribute and cooperate together.
§ Real time Peer Review: Every alteration made is listed on a recent changes page, thus users can monitor the changes on topics and pages they have an interest in. Community of participants work on Wikipedia content, and monitor it changes as it is the passion of the community which generates the high quality of work.
· Governance Model:
§ Consensus on content
§ Democracy – Trusted administrators elected by community
§ Aristocracy – In community where respected participants hold power via the credibility and authenticity
§ Monarchy – Free software model allows for a singular go-to point for ultimate decision making within the project
· In reflection on this video of Jimmy Wales at TED I think it strongly demonstrates that active participatory culture can indeed act as a gatekeeper to its content.
The video also points out that different economic models can support online communities and content on a global scale, previous only seen in corporatized websites, due to the reduced cost of product and distribution of content online. This made me consider the funding models proposed by Mignon Shardlow in the Week 8 MED104 lecture that proposed a model of possible public funding of news organisations.
I see some issue with this as news can tend to be information of interest with short time frames where the community will participate in a single topic, and can be on a more localised scale and thus there would have to be smaller localised communities. This would lead me to consider just to what scale a “wiki news” type model maybe effective as if the community is too small questions of credibility in gate keeping, authenticity and accuracy could arise when a topic becomes too small a niche as news articles could be more susceptible to opinion rather in comparison to the fact based content which I think is more representative of an online encyclopaedia.
Overall I think the value present in information sharing models such as Wikipedia can be found in the participation of people within their own cultures of interest, where they can present a clear framework for this information within a particular social or cultural context as seen earlier in the course when discussing pop-cosmopolitanism where each culture has a repository for its own cultural content that can be easily accessed via online search and thus present a possibility to understand social cultural issues from many different contexts to find workable solutions for all.
· Wikipedia is a concept where every person in the world could have access to the sum of all human knowledge for free, and is freely sharable and adaptable as per the essence of creative commons.
· Wikipedia is written and maintained by volunteers using the wiki editing software that anyone can freely learn to use. To me this represents a strong sign of a participatory culture as proposed by Jenkins and is also an example of Suroweikis “Wisdom of Crowds” as per the video I sourced and shared in last week’s notes.
· Wikipedia’s model is one of a “not for profit” organisation that allows users to use its content for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.
· Wikipedia is funded by public donations
· Wikipedia has many articles across many languages, with only 1/3 being English; it would be interesting to see if many of these are translated to other languages so that those from other cultural backgrounds can more easily consume information from other cultures.
· Wikipedia’s organisation structure allows for minimal staff and minimal costs. In my reflection on this I considered if a global news organisation could be built on a similar model – funded by the public, with content managed by volunteers. I think an issue could be that news sites differ from encyclopaedias in that news can be opinionated and positioned within certain social contexts, whilst the information within online encyclopaedias like Wikipedia’s can be more fact based (black and white). This could cause more conflicts within the public sphere of a “wiki news” website and thus would have to be structured slightly differently I believe.
· The accuracy of the Wikipedia is equal to that found in traditional encyclopaedia media.
· Controversial topics within Wikipedia are highly edited and subject to quality control within the Wikipedia community. I see this as a form of collective gate keeping within the community which in traditional media was done by editors and publishers. In Wikipedia quality control takes place via:
§ Neutral point of view policy: similar to the objectivity found in tradition media in the early 20th century as discussed in the Wall reading. In a Wikipedia framework this allows a diverse set of people to contribute and cooperate together.
§ Real time Peer Review: Every alteration made is listed on a recent changes page, thus users can monitor the changes on topics and pages they have an interest in. Community of participants work on Wikipedia content, and monitor it changes as it is the passion of the community which generates the high quality of work.
· Governance Model:
§ Consensus on content
§ Democracy – Trusted administrators elected by community
§ Aristocracy – In community where respected participants hold power via the credibility and authenticity
§ Monarchy – Free software model allows for a singular go-to point for ultimate decision making within the project
· In reflection on this video of Jimmy Wales at TED I think it strongly demonstrates that active participatory culture can indeed act as a gatekeeper to its content.
The video also points out that different economic models can support online communities and content on a global scale, previous only seen in corporatized websites, due to the reduced cost of product and distribution of content online. This made me consider the funding models proposed by Mignon Shardlow in the Week 8 MED104 lecture that proposed a model of possible public funding of news organisations.
I see some issue with this as news can tend to be information of interest with short time frames where the community will participate in a single topic, and can be on a more localised scale and thus there would have to be smaller localised communities. This would lead me to consider just to what scale a “wiki news” type model maybe effective as if the community is too small questions of credibility in gate keeping, authenticity and accuracy could arise when a topic becomes too small a niche as news articles could be more susceptible to opinion rather in comparison to the fact based content which I think is more representative of an online encyclopaedia.
Overall I think the value present in information sharing models such as Wikipedia can be found in the participation of people within their own cultures of interest, where they can present a clear framework for this information within a particular social or cultural context as seen earlier in the course when discussing pop-cosmopolitanism where each culture has a repository for its own cultural content that can be easily accessed via online search and thus present a possibility to understand social cultural issues from many different contexts to find workable solutions for all.
Are traditional forms of informational media dying? What are their equivalents? Are they in competition and if not why?
I do not think that traditional forms of media are dying, but they are evolving with technologies which have changed the way media is being produced and distributed and thus some old media forms are being re-mediated.
Newspapers are shifting slowly from print to online so that readers can consume via the laptops, tablets and Smartphone’s they use today. TV and radio is now available streaming online via multimedia embedded into websites.
I don’t think they are in competition as online media is generally remediated content from TV, Radio and Print still today with specifically online or print content designed to specific needs of the readers of each. The consumers of each media type (new vs. old) might be done so along generational line I think so as online generations become dominant the old media will simply not be relevant to a large enough section of society for them to maintain a broad focus and thus will probably need to focus on a specific niche market.
What happens to editorial control, credibility and ethics in the new media forms of information presented in wikipedia, blogs?
I think much of this now how has to be assessed by the audience by looking at the authenticity and credibility of both the writer and organization so that context of the article and any possible biases can be identified. Also by the writer supplying source information by which they built up their article or media production credibility can be gained and thus the trust and respect of the audience – this is probably most important for blogs I think as it will enable the writer to more effectively engage with their audience and blog community.
Wikipedia is slightly different as it relies upon a couple of facets – firstly the want to learn the basic knowledge of how to create and edit wiki posts which is not as easy as just typing into a word document, and secondly within topics of interests the wisdoms of crowds seems to come Into pay quite quickly where any errors or misleading information is quickly corrected within a community as is explained in these videos:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jimmy_wales_on_the_birth_of_wikipedia.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/james_surowiecki_on_the_turning_point_for_social_media.html
I do not think that traditional forms of media are dying, but they are evolving with technologies which have changed the way media is being produced and distributed and thus some old media forms are being re-mediated.
Newspapers are shifting slowly from print to online so that readers can consume via the laptops, tablets and Smartphone’s they use today. TV and radio is now available streaming online via multimedia embedded into websites.
I don’t think they are in competition as online media is generally remediated content from TV, Radio and Print still today with specifically online or print content designed to specific needs of the readers of each. The consumers of each media type (new vs. old) might be done so along generational line I think so as online generations become dominant the old media will simply not be relevant to a large enough section of society for them to maintain a broad focus and thus will probably need to focus on a specific niche market.
What happens to editorial control, credibility and ethics in the new media forms of information presented in wikipedia, blogs?
I think much of this now how has to be assessed by the audience by looking at the authenticity and credibility of both the writer and organization so that context of the article and any possible biases can be identified. Also by the writer supplying source information by which they built up their article or media production credibility can be gained and thus the trust and respect of the audience – this is probably most important for blogs I think as it will enable the writer to more effectively engage with their audience and blog community.
Wikipedia is slightly different as it relies upon a couple of facets – firstly the want to learn the basic knowledge of how to create and edit wiki posts which is not as easy as just typing into a word document, and secondly within topics of interests the wisdoms of crowds seems to come Into pay quite quickly where any errors or misleading information is quickly corrected within a community as is explained in these videos:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jimmy_wales_on_the_birth_of_wikipedia.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/james_surowiecki_on_the_turning_point_for_social_media.html
· Journalism is important to question the established and dominant political and social paradigms (democracy)
· Without free news journalism there can be no assurances of a free and informed populace
· News stories are information gathered from people – is it thus correct/incorrect to condemn journalists who get information from twitter? I think as a starting point no – but journalists needs to contact that person so that the information can be put into the intended context to avoid errors – this is why in-depth journalism and reporting is crucial.
· What is the responsibility of journalism – what happens when they get it wrong
o Manufactured news (spin) from press releases
o Does truth suffer from public relations (PR)
· Economic rationalism of news production affects the quality of news (corporate ownership)
o Decreasing Journalism vs. Increasing Public Relations
o Credibility and authenticity questions arise
· Online News – does it change anything?
o More scope for content
o Links to sources
o Compare how topics are covered by different organizations
o Search through news archives
· Economic models online still to be understood
o Will pay walls work?
o Can they be publicly funded (ABC, SBS)
o Access via login so that information can be sold to advertisers/marketers
· Newspapers are designed to discover what their readers do not know. Adhering to this will maintain audience attention and keep them economically viable in any media form.
· Without free news journalism there can be no assurances of a free and informed populace
· News stories are information gathered from people – is it thus correct/incorrect to condemn journalists who get information from twitter? I think as a starting point no – but journalists needs to contact that person so that the information can be put into the intended context to avoid errors – this is why in-depth journalism and reporting is crucial.
· What is the responsibility of journalism – what happens when they get it wrong
o Manufactured news (spin) from press releases
o Does truth suffer from public relations (PR)
· Economic rationalism of news production affects the quality of news (corporate ownership)
o Decreasing Journalism vs. Increasing Public Relations
o Credibility and authenticity questions arise
· Online News – does it change anything?
o More scope for content
o Links to sources
o Compare how topics are covered by different organizations
o Search through news archives
· Economic models online still to be understood
o Will pay walls work?
o Can they be publicly funded (ABC, SBS)
o Access via login so that information can be sold to advertisers/marketers
· Newspapers are designed to discover what their readers do not know. Adhering to this will maintain audience attention and keep them economically viable in any media form.
· On a daily basis I have the Age newspaper delivered. When comparing that to the online news services I access I noted that the main differences were:
o Multimedia (audio/video) content online.
o Social media links which allow me to share stories I find interesting (recommendation systems)
o Searchable content online
o Ability to compare how the Age reports stories in comparison to other news outlets both locally and globally
o Able to access older articles from archives (free information from restriction of time and space)
o Ability to assess information via self investigation online
o Each edition Print and Online seem to have their own set of either print-only or online-only articles which adds value to consumers of each edition
o Online news is more up-to-date breaking news whilst print is 12-24 hours old
o Print media still seems to have more in-depth articles than online
o Media content can be filtered via tools such as RSS
o Online news I can also access though my mobile devices
o Online news site is free
Some of the adverts online are tailored to my browsing habits which I am more interested in than many of the print advertisements
o Multimedia (audio/video) content online.
o Social media links which allow me to share stories I find interesting (recommendation systems)
o Searchable content online
o Ability to compare how the Age reports stories in comparison to other news outlets both locally and globally
o Able to access older articles from archives (free information from restriction of time and space)
o Ability to assess information via self investigation online
o Each edition Print and Online seem to have their own set of either print-only or online-only articles which adds value to consumers of each edition
o Online news is more up-to-date breaking news whilst print is 12-24 hours old
o Print media still seems to have more in-depth articles than online
o Media content can be filtered via tools such as RSS
o Online news I can also access though my mobile devices
o Online news site is free
Some of the adverts online are tailored to my browsing habits which I am more interested in than many of the print advertisements
Christopher Harper (2003). Journalism in a digital age. In H. Jenkins & D. Thorburn (Eds), Democracy and New Media (pp. 271-280). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
· Media plays a significant role in agenda setting in that it can shape what consumers think about.
· The media emphasize specific events ideas and social values and frame the stories they present in particular ways that affect the way they are interpreted by consumers. I agree with this point but think in a digital age it is easy for consumers to source different articles on the same topic from different news sources to form a more rounded and balanced opinion; thus any bias in reporting from one news source can be more readily identified.
· By choosing what news and how it is present news media sources are acting as the gatekeepers of “what is news” and can thus filter particular news that does not fit the demographic for their target audience, or the overall values of the dominant culture at the time meaning news from smaller social, cultural or ethnic groups is seldom heard with popular news sources.
· In contrast to this gate keeping within the old media model however, the online media model with its low barriers for entry mean that these groups can freely create and distribute media that is relevant to them as proposed by Jenkins in his reading in week one and two of Med104 – creating tighter and wider ties within their community, and because of the searchability of the internet meaning that people from outside of that culture can now more easily access this media as seen with the pop-cosmopolitanism – in the world of new media I think news-cosmopolitanism is becoming more frequent also with people looking for news from localized sources (i.e. why have news from the middle-east re-iterated to us via channel 7 news when we can go online, or use a mobile app to get middle-eastern news from a news source such as al-jazeera)
· The mass broadcast of news of old media is perhaps giving way to more tailored news delivery within new media – which could also mean a more targeted economic model via the use of targeted online marketing though tool such as Google ads where adverts relate both to the content being consumed and the consumers overall browsing habits.
· Harper sates early on that the World Wide Web (WWW) cannot set the agenda as the audience is still too small and thus the old media still maintains control. In the context of today I disagree with this notion as this paper was released in 2003 and the research done even before this. I think that today online news and citizen journalism is beginning to dominate how certain generation, generally under forty I would guess, access news media. Today consumers want to be able access media though a converged space rather than having a computer for work a phone for calls, and a TV, or radio, or newspaper, for news. Online news also seems more immediate these older news sources.
· It seems that the role of journalists due to economic and time constraints is diminishing within media organizations where perhaps the immediacy of the WWW is meaning that they are unable to write with the depth of knowledge that they once did. Perhaps in my opinion news sources, such as Reuters and AAP, will become more prevalent for online news, with affiliated journalism originations linking more in depth analysis later to these more generic reporting pieces.
· Online Journalism can:
o Place the power in the hands of the audience as they can now monitor news more easily
o Supply new ways of telling news by remediating via a number of new online platforms (Blogs, Twitter, YouTube, FlickR, etc, etc)
o Supplying Nontraditional news sources with a method to produce and distribute material globally.
· The Harper paper cites statistics gather from 1998 when the WWW was in its infancy and the ability to publish online took a reasonably high level of technical skill, and the ability to search for information was even harder. In contrast today anyone can publish and distribute media with the Web2.0 platforms freely available using nothing more than a laptop or perhaps even a Smartphone. And everything is easily searchable in a few clicks.
· Even in 2003 however it was noted by Harper that “online news has began to outpace radio and newspapers for the first word on breaking news”. So even back in 2003 old media outlets were finding it easier and faster to publish online and thus was outpacing old media broadcasting and publishing methods (battle for media attention by supplying breaking up-to-date news first).
· Harper then posits that future news audiences will not have the basic interest in news to be fully engaged with it. I think this has become reality in a sense that people will only engage with what interests them and thus they have become more interested in niche topic news rather than broadcast generic news stories. The abundance of media online also means that this is perhaps a cultural trend that has been forced upon consumers where they have become their own news gatekeepers via subscriptions, RSS feeds, Twitter feeds, Facebook groups etc etc.
· Michael Kolowich of newsedge.com listed these reasons as to why he thinks people are turning to online news sources:
o Make sure they get all the news ‘they’ want (tailored, niche news)
o Finding and searching for news (ability to search for news and find relating news not easily done with old media)
o They trust some news media outlets more than others (Authenticity, credibility and trust gained by audiences who can assess a news media source materials)
o Online community interactions
· The role of gate keeping is raised when Harper questions their role in deciding ‘what is news’ is questioned. Online I think there is a greater question mark over the authenticity and credibility of any online news article, this now has to be assessed by the audience themselves rather than having faith within a news organization as a whole. By this I mean that with the lowered barriers to entry anyone can publish information online via websites, blogs or social media – and it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true or been checked for accuracy, and in a time of abundance and easy sharing of information mistruths can spread rapidly. This is why it’s an important for the audience to assess credibility and authenticity. But even within trusted organizations I think we a seeing more and more the use of online sources and information from citizen journalists rather than researching the information themselves, so the context and accuracy of the information can be lost, and their credibility can be questioned.
· In the positive what citizen journalism can do is free information from the regulation of the old media, which can be good for repressed cultures or groups to get their message out into the public sphere.
· Harper mentions five facets to take into account for gate keeping within digital journalism:
o Reporting of news of large or increasing magnitude
o Unexpected or breaking stories
o Socio-cultural values of the audience and media outlet
o Continuity of stories and themes
o Cultural proximity and relevance
· Harper then assesses the differences between the traditional and digital editions of the Chicago Tribune, and notes them to be:
o The online edition offers most is what is found in the print edition
o The online edition also offers other in depth stories, special reports, games and discussion groups.
o Online edition also offers other more engaging media such as audio and video that is not available in print
o Online news offers non-linear story telling which enable readers to use hyper-links to access information relating to the story can see the story from many view points and in more detail – giving the consumer a broader context for the online media – and increase the authenticity and credibility of the writer.
· Harper then assesses some the attention grabbing techniques used by the New York Times. The times create a series of easily digestible sections that they can assess for interest and then click on them to access more in-depth information. And how a more succinct style of writing is also more suitable for online writing which I agree with as online hyperlinks can be used so that not all of the detail required in print has be written down, and supporting information can be easily found online.
· Harper categorized in her paper 3 types of journalist:
o Benevolent revolutionaries – enthusiastic to online possibilities
o Nervous Traditionalists – not enthusiastic
o Serene separatists – Don’t fear it but don’t think it change anything journalistically
· I can understand how these groups can easily form and it would be interesting to do a statistical analysis on each group and see if there is a generational trend amongst each group. At a guess I would expect, in context of today’s society, a mixture of GenY and GenX to be benevolent, baby boomers to be the traditionalists, and probably GenX to also be separatists.
· A quote from a traditionalist which caught my attention is that “as media becomes more dependent on high tech inventions, speed, I fear, will outweigh quality”.
· To some extent I agree that in today’s era of media abundance headline grabbing and sensationalist summaries often controls attention rather than the actual content of the media. I think to combat this news organizations may focus on more specific niches rather than trying to be a broad based media outlet as seen within the old media. There is simply too much news though social media outlets for old media constructs to keep up with and thus it is not in their interests to try and do so as it would be a waste of resources. If they focus on a strong niche, or handful of niches, they could produce higher quality engaging content with a well defined audience for advertisers to help these media outlets economically.
· Online production and distribution would also negate the high costs of printing to paper and distribution of that print further increasing economic returns. The Age currently has a digital edition which is an exact replica of its print edition with clickable adverts so I think this shift has already started. As technologies such as the kindle, iPad and other mobile devices grow I think digital subscription could be a way of the future.
· Media plays a significant role in agenda setting in that it can shape what consumers think about.
· The media emphasize specific events ideas and social values and frame the stories they present in particular ways that affect the way they are interpreted by consumers. I agree with this point but think in a digital age it is easy for consumers to source different articles on the same topic from different news sources to form a more rounded and balanced opinion; thus any bias in reporting from one news source can be more readily identified.
· By choosing what news and how it is present news media sources are acting as the gatekeepers of “what is news” and can thus filter particular news that does not fit the demographic for their target audience, or the overall values of the dominant culture at the time meaning news from smaller social, cultural or ethnic groups is seldom heard with popular news sources.
· In contrast to this gate keeping within the old media model however, the online media model with its low barriers for entry mean that these groups can freely create and distribute media that is relevant to them as proposed by Jenkins in his reading in week one and two of Med104 – creating tighter and wider ties within their community, and because of the searchability of the internet meaning that people from outside of that culture can now more easily access this media as seen with the pop-cosmopolitanism – in the world of new media I think news-cosmopolitanism is becoming more frequent also with people looking for news from localized sources (i.e. why have news from the middle-east re-iterated to us via channel 7 news when we can go online, or use a mobile app to get middle-eastern news from a news source such as al-jazeera)
· The mass broadcast of news of old media is perhaps giving way to more tailored news delivery within new media – which could also mean a more targeted economic model via the use of targeted online marketing though tool such as Google ads where adverts relate both to the content being consumed and the consumers overall browsing habits.
· Harper sates early on that the World Wide Web (WWW) cannot set the agenda as the audience is still too small and thus the old media still maintains control. In the context of today I disagree with this notion as this paper was released in 2003 and the research done even before this. I think that today online news and citizen journalism is beginning to dominate how certain generation, generally under forty I would guess, access news media. Today consumers want to be able access media though a converged space rather than having a computer for work a phone for calls, and a TV, or radio, or newspaper, for news. Online news also seems more immediate these older news sources.
· It seems that the role of journalists due to economic and time constraints is diminishing within media organizations where perhaps the immediacy of the WWW is meaning that they are unable to write with the depth of knowledge that they once did. Perhaps in my opinion news sources, such as Reuters and AAP, will become more prevalent for online news, with affiliated journalism originations linking more in depth analysis later to these more generic reporting pieces.
· Online Journalism can:
o Place the power in the hands of the audience as they can now monitor news more easily
o Supply new ways of telling news by remediating via a number of new online platforms (Blogs, Twitter, YouTube, FlickR, etc, etc)
o Supplying Nontraditional news sources with a method to produce and distribute material globally.
· The Harper paper cites statistics gather from 1998 when the WWW was in its infancy and the ability to publish online took a reasonably high level of technical skill, and the ability to search for information was even harder. In contrast today anyone can publish and distribute media with the Web2.0 platforms freely available using nothing more than a laptop or perhaps even a Smartphone. And everything is easily searchable in a few clicks.
· Even in 2003 however it was noted by Harper that “online news has began to outpace radio and newspapers for the first word on breaking news”. So even back in 2003 old media outlets were finding it easier and faster to publish online and thus was outpacing old media broadcasting and publishing methods (battle for media attention by supplying breaking up-to-date news first).
· Harper then posits that future news audiences will not have the basic interest in news to be fully engaged with it. I think this has become reality in a sense that people will only engage with what interests them and thus they have become more interested in niche topic news rather than broadcast generic news stories. The abundance of media online also means that this is perhaps a cultural trend that has been forced upon consumers where they have become their own news gatekeepers via subscriptions, RSS feeds, Twitter feeds, Facebook groups etc etc.
· Michael Kolowich of newsedge.com listed these reasons as to why he thinks people are turning to online news sources:
o Make sure they get all the news ‘they’ want (tailored, niche news)
o Finding and searching for news (ability to search for news and find relating news not easily done with old media)
o They trust some news media outlets more than others (Authenticity, credibility and trust gained by audiences who can assess a news media source materials)
o Online community interactions
· The role of gate keeping is raised when Harper questions their role in deciding ‘what is news’ is questioned. Online I think there is a greater question mark over the authenticity and credibility of any online news article, this now has to be assessed by the audience themselves rather than having faith within a news organization as a whole. By this I mean that with the lowered barriers to entry anyone can publish information online via websites, blogs or social media – and it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true or been checked for accuracy, and in a time of abundance and easy sharing of information mistruths can spread rapidly. This is why it’s an important for the audience to assess credibility and authenticity. But even within trusted organizations I think we a seeing more and more the use of online sources and information from citizen journalists rather than researching the information themselves, so the context and accuracy of the information can be lost, and their credibility can be questioned.
· In the positive what citizen journalism can do is free information from the regulation of the old media, which can be good for repressed cultures or groups to get their message out into the public sphere.
· Harper mentions five facets to take into account for gate keeping within digital journalism:
o Reporting of news of large or increasing magnitude
o Unexpected or breaking stories
o Socio-cultural values of the audience and media outlet
o Continuity of stories and themes
o Cultural proximity and relevance
· Harper then assesses the differences between the traditional and digital editions of the Chicago Tribune, and notes them to be:
o The online edition offers most is what is found in the print edition
o The online edition also offers other in depth stories, special reports, games and discussion groups.
o Online edition also offers other more engaging media such as audio and video that is not available in print
o Online news offers non-linear story telling which enable readers to use hyper-links to access information relating to the story can see the story from many view points and in more detail – giving the consumer a broader context for the online media – and increase the authenticity and credibility of the writer.
· Harper then assesses some the attention grabbing techniques used by the New York Times. The times create a series of easily digestible sections that they can assess for interest and then click on them to access more in-depth information. And how a more succinct style of writing is also more suitable for online writing which I agree with as online hyperlinks can be used so that not all of the detail required in print has be written down, and supporting information can be easily found online.
· Harper categorized in her paper 3 types of journalist:
o Benevolent revolutionaries – enthusiastic to online possibilities
o Nervous Traditionalists – not enthusiastic
o Serene separatists – Don’t fear it but don’t think it change anything journalistically
· I can understand how these groups can easily form and it would be interesting to do a statistical analysis on each group and see if there is a generational trend amongst each group. At a guess I would expect, in context of today’s society, a mixture of GenY and GenX to be benevolent, baby boomers to be the traditionalists, and probably GenX to also be separatists.
· A quote from a traditionalist which caught my attention is that “as media becomes more dependent on high tech inventions, speed, I fear, will outweigh quality”.
· To some extent I agree that in today’s era of media abundance headline grabbing and sensationalist summaries often controls attention rather than the actual content of the media. I think to combat this news organizations may focus on more specific niches rather than trying to be a broad based media outlet as seen within the old media. There is simply too much news though social media outlets for old media constructs to keep up with and thus it is not in their interests to try and do so as it would be a waste of resources. If they focus on a strong niche, or handful of niches, they could produce higher quality engaging content with a well defined audience for advertisers to help these media outlets economically.
· Online production and distribution would also negate the high costs of printing to paper and distribution of that print further increasing economic returns. The Age currently has a digital edition which is an exact replica of its print edition with clickable adverts so I think this shift has already started. As technologies such as the kindle, iPad and other mobile devices grow I think digital subscription could be a way of the future.