Wednesday 29 October 2008
Tuesday 28 October 2008
At the touch of a button
"Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it".
Today I think this is both true and false.
It is true in the fact that we are using more and more technological applications, devices and methods to organise, socialise, structure and categorise our lives.
Yet on the other hand so many people have been given the freedom to do things never before thought possible thanks to technology. As we now know this is not just true for the professionals but for the amateurs too. Arguably today’s generation are experiencing more than one could ever imagine.
One vital element of this experience is networking. Networking in the twenty first century is worldwide, free-flowing and immediate all thanks to technological advances meaning billions of people are ‘hooked up’ at the touch of a button.
Without networking, journalism of any era would be pretty much futile. Without communities, media organisations and journalists would struggle in ever knowing how to connect with and increase their audiences. And without participation, journalism wouldn’t be the true form of communication that is has always aspired to be.
The networking, forming of communities and participating of the modern world has allowed new realms of possibility and advance in the world of media. Today’s technology now allows a wider, faster network between journalists and the public with a multitude of new forms of communication.
Modern technology has also made it easier for audiences to share at the touch of a button and as we know they now even have the tools to capture the news themselves. Just look at the bottom of the BBC homepage and will see links to e-mail news, mobile alerts, podcasts, news feeds, alerts and interactive TV. Another example is The Telegraph online site, which has a growing emphasis on audience interaction and online communities with their user written My Telegraph section as explained by Shane Richmond, Communities Editor in a recent lecture.
However we look at it, journalists and audiences are more networked than ever before.
Lets just take one illustration of modern networked, community based communication: online forums. Forums are a place for debate, critical analysis, comparison, sharing of knowledge or just simply socialising within a network of people anywhere in the world.
If we look at two examples of forums that I have recently read, one discussing a Fox News story on whether a recent Family Guy episode went too far in the presidential race by likening the McCain/Palin ticket to the Nazi party and one debating the recent Empire review of the new Bond film, Quantum of Solace. Both the FoxForum and Empire magazine ‘Write Your Own Review’ section led audiences to partake in intellectual discussions about the presidential race and critical analysis of the new Bond film. Empire even more recently through another format opened up an online web chat with film director Danny Boyle, where online subscribers (such as myself under the username djimi42 - see transcript) asked questions and got the latest on his new upcoming films, which was then published as an interview.
Clearly there was some comments and discussion that was not relevant or intelligent. Yet the fact that these forms of online networked communication on what would appear trivial subjects or journalist territory managed to produce what I would describe as interesting and informed conversation not only serves as point scoring in favour of citizen journalism but is just one, small extract of the wonder of this networked world we live in.
Photo courtesy of luc legay: http://www.flickr.com/photos/luc/1824234195/
Citizen or Journalist? You decide.
Today there are more people making the news than ever before.
The rise of ‘citizen journalism’ and User Generated Content (UGC) seems to be dividing the people, in particular, the journalists themselves. The big question: is this citizen journalism democratising the media?
We know that the public have always communicated with the journalists, whether it has been through letters to the editor or radio phone-ins, but now this communication has sky rocketed into a world of instant contribution, reaction and interaction from audiences and readers worldwide.
One crucial aspect to any discussion of journalism and one that I find essential to this debate is in the element of trust. The Watergate scandal in the early 1970s involved one of the most important journalistic investigations and discoveries in American political history that not only centred on the lack of trust between the government and the public, but was also an episode that demonstrated how important trust was in the newsroom. This was depicted in the film All the President’s Men which centred on this scandal as displayed in this dialogue extract between two of the journalists:
Ben Bradlee: How much can you tell me about Deep Throat?
Bob Woodward: How much do you need to know?
Ben Bradlee: Do you trust him?
Bob Woodward: Yeah.
Ben Bradlee: I can’t do the reporting for my reporters, which means I have to trust them. And I hate trusting anybody. Run that baby.
This scene from the film represents the importance of trust that should be inherent to all journalistic practices, but the rise of UGC and citizen journalism has created concerns over whether this trust could be being eroded when so much content is left unchecked.
One of the obvious issues with aspects such as blogging, forums and discussion boards is that it is difficult to know which sources and comments are credible and accurate when so much of the content is unverified. It is evident that fakes and hoaxes aren’t that uncommon on these UGC sites.
Even when considering the debates and comments that develop beneath a Youtube video - questions over authenticity, knowledge and accuracy should be asked as if there is no verification, whom do you choose to believe?
On the other hand, one undeniably positive aspect of citizen journalism is a matter of access. Citizens can often get places where journalists can’t. It does open up questions of safety with the endangering of citizens to capture extraordinary events, but it is difficult to deny the potential impact of utilising public access to certain stories, for example when lives could be saved or if it is for the good of a country.
UGC can also clearly provide many positive possibilities through the sharing of knowledge or opinion for an experience or even a product. If we listen to Rupert Murdoch this revolution won’t hold back journalism, but instead help it progress:
“So unless we awaken to these changes, which are quite different to those of 5 or 6 years ago, we will, as an industry, be relegated to the status of also-rans. Properly done, they are an opportunity to actually improve our journalism and expand our reach”
One important point to consider is how different news organisations deal with UGC. Is the ‘Unedited, Unfiltered News’ that CNN’s iReport promotes really a force for democracy when you consider that a significant proportion of the content is taken up by home videos and genuinely not newsworthy content?
Fox News’s current online tagline is ‘We Report. You Decide.’ , yet ironically they also have a UGC section called ‘uReport’, and when looking at the most viewed videos there is a lack of real journalism present.
Alternatively the BBC has complete control over the UGC in its Have Your Say site with 30 people employed moderating exactly what gets published online and more importantly what doesn’t. Applying old media values to new media has worked so far, but The BBC may be going down CNN’s path of less and less moderation possibly because of financial reasons or maybe because audiences may prefer this.
I find myself still undecided over the democratic potential of UGC and citizen journalism and I think all these questions of trust, quality, accuracy and impartiality will continue to dominate discussions around these issues.
Photo courtesy of rsambrook:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sambrook/100538533/
and
Tommy_Vercetti:
How's My Blogging?
Blogging, Twitter, social bookmarking, Mento, Flickr. The message for today’s journalist: ignore at your peril.
As we now know blogging isn’t simply done by frustrated film fans wanting to unload their grievances with the latest Star Wars sequel. Users of Twitter aren’t just procrastinating web geeks bored of Facebook. In reality blogging is a fundamental facet of modern journalism and modern communication, while Twitter has been used by journalists in danger to alert their community of serious predicaments they find themselves in. The contemporary journalist must keep up or be cast by the wayside.
These Internet services are proof of not just the growing awareness journalists must have of the online sphere, but also how interactivity and collaboration between the journalists and the public plays a more vital role than ever before. This direct engagement, interaction and collaboration is not just exciting, but transforming the news climate with citizen journalism blurring long-standing media boundaries. This is just one other aspect of change that is happening on a vast scale at an alarming rate.
Glyn Mottershead opened his first online journalism lecture telling us how the industry is in flux. Unquestionably it always has been, but it appears that these changes are happening faster than ever. You only need to consider some of the recent developments within online news to appreciate this.
One central example is that online news sites are now awash with media as journalists are now expected to be multimedia skilled professionals. The BBC online news site now bursts with video content including a combination of exclusive online footage and excerpts from TV and radio BBC news content.
This recent revolutionising and revamping of the UK’s most dominant online news player is an indication of the wider changes taking place globally to online news. The Guardian has a tab and whole section of their online website dedicated to video and you only have to enter the Sky News homepage to see video and moving images fill the screen. A recent study reflects this growing interest and popularity of video content online and also the BBC’s dominance in the online news category.
Not only has video become so vital online, but also the aspect of live video streaming is becoming increasingly newsworthy and popular. To coincide with the coverage of rolling 24-hour news stations, news companies, such as Sky News and BBC now have exclusive live content streamed online. Just take a recent example from the BBC news website that demonstrates the significance of exclusive live streaming. This week a lion kill was filmed part of the programme ‘Big Cats’ and was streamed live to web. News or not, this later became the most watched video of the day of the BBC news site.
So today’s journalist must be a blogging, twittering, bookmarking, flickr pro that keeps up to speed with everything taking place in the World Wide Web from live streaming to flash journalism. My only question: is there enough time in the day?
Image used courtesy of Laughing Squid at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/1184346933
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