Lecture 2 New Media & Journalism Dec09

(New!) Media - and journalism in the online age -

This lecture aims to:
Build on the notions presented the previous day (convergence and web 2.0)
Discuss the challenges that the emergence of new media pose to traditional media
Analyze the changes in media landscape (both in terms of practice and technology) and their implication on the journalism practice

Media - a definition
A two level definition:
The technology that enables communication
Set of associated “protocols” or social and cultural practices that have grown up around a specific technology
Lisa Gitelman apud Jenkins, 2006 Technology

Communication Models
The transmission model (Lasswell, 1920; Shannon & Weaver, 1949)
Sender --> Receiver
Sender --> Medium --> Receiver
Sender <-- Medium <-- Receiver
Sender <--> Medium <--> Receiver

The journalist’s role
What is the role of the (new) media in your society?
Which media: news, entertainment, arts, documentary, sports?
How has the role of the media developed?
Does the media fulfill this social obligation?

The journalistic ideology
Public service
journalists provide a public service (as watchdogs or n ewshounds', active collectors and disseminators of information)
Objectivity
journalists are impartial, neutral, objective, fair and (thus) credible
Autonomy
journalists must be autonomous, free and independent in their work
Immediacy
journalists have a sense of immediacy, actuality and speed (inherent in the concept of n ews )
Ethics
journalists have a sense of ethics, validity and legitimacy
(Deuze, 2005)

Every traditional medium fears the “new”
1929, London - first radio presence @ the Olympic Games (with restrictions imposed by the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association
2002, US - reporters of Tampa Bay Online (TBA.com) refuse to work in synergy with colleagues in other part of the organization (Deuze, 2005)
2002, EU - European multimedia news report shows little cooperation between various departments of news organizations
The media competition

Home Media Capacity - 1975
Product Route to home Display Local storage
TV stations phone TV Cassette/ 8-track
broadcast TV radio
broadcast radio stereo Vinyl album
Local news mail
Advertising newspaper delivery phone
Radio Stations
non-electronic
Tom Wolzein, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co

Home Media Capacity – Today Tom Wolzein, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co

New media blend
Watched TV news: 1994 72%
2004 60%
Read a newspaper 1994 49%
2004 42%
Accessed news online 1994 N/A
2004 24%
Went online 1995 4%
2004 47%

Net loss in newspaper use and prime time broadcast TV

Summer 2003 Image of News Sources 8% 41% 14% 11% 15% Useful way to learn 9% 20% 10% 11% 37% Offers “news I can use” 4% 29% 24% 13% 19% Up-to-date 9% 10% 21% 19% 21% Trustworthy 12% 23% Local TV News Newspaper Internet Cable TV News National Net. News 9% 49% 9% 6% Provides news only when I want it 4% 20% 18% 12% Entertaining

New Media Journalism
Cyberjournalism
Multimedia journalism
Interactive journalism
We don’t know yet what the Net makes possible because we’re still asking how the journalism we’ve known and loved translates to the new medium – or doesn’t. (Rosen, apud Outing, 2001)

Thorston & Duffy, 2005

Show:
EPIC movie 2015
Future of media

Imagine for a moment that you are a journalist in Brussels. You don’t work for a TV company or newspaper. You have no particular assignment.
What would you write about?
What story do you want?
What will you be prepared to report, to get the truth out?

Citizen Journalism?
Producer/consumer blurred
Non-professional
Hyperlinked
(Ephemeral and Informal)
Citizenship
Critical of media
Global moral code rather than ethical code
Little attempt to impose a hierarchy
Community value, rather than commercial
Irreverent opinion

The Values of Citizen Journalists
Politically motivated?
Agenda setting?
Shared resources
Open source

How/where?
Blog
Videos (shared)
Photos (shared)
Podcasts/audio (share)
Social networking
Mobile phone

Outing’s layers of citizen journalism
Open up to public comment
- not only articles but other sections as well
- moderate/ subscription
Citizen as an add-on reporter
- citizens add information to a current story (eg. Theft/Burglary - they provide the examples, photos, solutions)
Open-source reporting
contact with knowledgeable readers
submit just to a couple of readers for suggestions
Ask for readers/viewers for questions for a future interview

4. Citizen bloghouse
- blog on a story
- blog for a publication
- own publication’s own blogs hosting service
- have an aggregator application
5. Newsroom citizen “transparency” blog
- share information about the workings of the newsroom: processes, people
6. The stand-alone citizen journalism site - edited version
Very local news
The editor is a guide to the community
Might cover what the journalist cannot reach/not mainstream

7. The stand alone citizen journalism site - unedited version
- has all the typos and misspellings but has character
8. The added print edition
- put in print either 6 or 7
9. The hybrid: professional and citizen journalism
- OhMyNews (70% citizen; 30% professional)
- The web version dictated the print one
10. Under one roof
- news is conversation not just lecture

Wiki Journalism
- readers are editors (WIKI NEWS)
SHOW FILM: WIKIS IN PLAIN ENGLISH

New(s) media types
Authoritative: Created and produced by news professionals
Created: News and information produced by audiences
Opinionated: News and information with attitude and voice

Journalism (new) ideology
Public service
More multicultural and more multi-angled
The public gets to contribute to the stories (comments, photos, videos, testimonials)
The primacy of story-telling remains but there while cautiously embracing the wants and needs of the audience
Objectivity
More interpretations of objectivity
A more active awareness of what is out there (both technologically and culturally)

Journalism (new) ideology online
Autonomy
Shared (calls for an even higher degree of integration are still out there)
Immediacy
“ When news happens it’s common for the first photographs not to be sent via news wire, but posted to a Flickr site.”
Newsweek, April 3, 2006
Ethics
Questions still remain (if the number isn’t bigger) but the answer is more complicated due to the multiculturalism, diversity and glocality of the “news” environment

Conclusions
Media as technology and as social and cultural practices surrounding that technology
New technologies lead to new forms of communication
Citizen journalism is an addition to traditional journalism
The journalism practice is changing, multi-skills being more and more required
Reality becomes multi-faceted and multi-layered

Tomorrow:
Practice day

Lecture 2 New Media & Journalism Dec09

by Ana ADI on Dec 10, 2009

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Lecture 2 New Media & Journalism Dec09 — Presentation Transcript