December 28, 2006 • 2:06 am
Are we being spoilt by having too much choice in a new media world? According to Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post, we are gorging ourselves on this feast, but missing the Ed Sullivan moments.
By this he means a time when families across the US shared a new experience via the Ed Sullivan TV show, such as seeing The Beatles for the first time.
Rather than take issue with his approach, I will point you in the direction of Howard Owens, who makes a good case for distributed media against old fart media.
As he writes:
“This nostalgia for mass media is misplaced. Sure those Ed Sullivan moments were fun, but they were an anomaly. They were moments in time that only a Baby Boomer could love. Mass media is a relic of the 20th Century, the only period in human history in which it existed. For most of our history, communication was much more personal, often far closer to one-to-one than one-to-many. Now we’re in the era of many-to-many, which has more in common with campfire media, is more of a deeply felt personal media, more in keeping with our nature. Mass media wasn’t good for us. Distributed media is better.”
It is understandable that some will hark back to another era in the media. But we cannot pretend that the media is not changing. As with all change, some things are better, some things are worse. I, for one, are encouraged by the possibilities of new media. It all depends on what we do with it.
Filed under: broadcast, new media, newspapers
December 23, 2006 • 2:45 am
From The Guardian, the 100 most useful websites of the year.
The list is an interesting mix of old and new, ranging from the BBC News website and The New York Times to Second Life and Basecamp. As the article says:
“In 2004, the internet was a different place: there was, for example, no YouTube, and most Britons online didn’t have broadband. That’s changed dramatically: now, more than 75% of users have broadband, and the arrival of Web 2.0 has brought sites where the interaction is as fast as if it were on your machine. So we’ve revisited the “cream of the crop” that we brought you two years ago.”
What do you make of the list? Any others you have found indispensible?
Filed under: internet, new media
December 22, 2006 • 6:54 am
All credit to PBS’s Mark Glaser for his blog entry on Time’s Person of the Year.
Time might have been all excited about making “You” its Person of the Year. But as Glaser points out, the magazine itself is doing little to involve “You” in its journalism.
Glaser writes:
“There’s a feel of show to this praising of Time’s audience, without actually giving them any real power to make change in Time’s own house. It’s almost as if they’re pointing to this special issue — the biggest Person of the Year issue yet! — and saying, “see, we’ve changed.” Instead, they’ve probably confused a lot of people, who think Time is just copping out by picking “You” for the cover.”
He outlines eight ways Time can change this. For a start, it could let people comment on every story posted online. This is not a revolutionary idea, but it does highlight the irony in Time’s decision.
Filed under: citizen journalism, interactive journalism, new media
December 19, 2006 • 8:07 am
The BBC has published the service licences that bind the controllers of the BBC’s eight TV channels, 16 radio services, its website, interactive service and digital education service.
The licences are set by the BBC Trust, the new independent body responsible for governing the corporation, and come into effect at the start of 2007.
The online service licence makes for interesting reading. The phrasing implies that the Trust sees the internet as a add-on to television and radio, rather than as a new, separate medium in its own right.
From the licence:
“bbc.co.uk should publish content which it creates as a natural
consequence of television or radio production. It should combine the BBC’s major broadcast initiatives and output with published, interactive and user-generated content, forming part of cross-media propositions which contribute to the promotion of the five public purposes. It should provide content based directly on original television and radio programmes, plus context for programmes and tools, such as navigation.”
This would seem to imply that online content has to be tied to TV and radio output. There is some ambiguity as the licence goes on to say:
“bbc.co.uk should explore new ways of exploiting the unique characteristics of the internet to provide innovative and distinctive entertainment content and services, originated specifically for the internet.”
This suggests that online services should be in the business of creating original material. What is unclear is whether this has to be related to what TV and radio are up to and be directly related to those broadcast activities.
Perhaps the answer is in how its remit is defined. The licence talks about creating “distinctive propositions that reflect and extend the range of the BBC’’s broadcast services.”
From this, it is clear that the BBC Trust see the internet as complementary to the TV and radio, rather than as an emerging communications platform that deserves to be approached as a new medium.
Filed under: BBC, interactive journalism, internet, multiplatform journalism, new media
December 18, 2006 • 9:23 am
I have always had doubts about the purpose of offering a digital edition of a newspaper. By this, I mean a digital reproduction of the paper version.
Why take something that is designed to be read as a physical paper product and turn it into an inferior reproduction on a computer screen?
It seems that Canwest has no such doubts. It is now offering downloadable digital editions of 11 newspapers in 12 languages other than English, reports Media in Canada.
You can also have the newspaper read aloud to you in these languages. Though why you would want to listen to something that was written for the eye rather than the ear is beyond me.
At a time when media organisations are eeking out meagre resources for their online services, investing in digital editions appears misguided.
A better strategy would be to improve the newspaper websites on Canada.com and offer these sites in a number of languages.
The move by Canwest is just another misguided step by a mainstream media organisations which fails to understand that the internet is a new medium.
Filed under: Canada, multiplatform journalism, new media, newspapers
December 17, 2006 • 9:26 am
The decision by Time magazine to name “You” as its Person of the Year is all over the internet.
According to Time, You, the audience, public, whatever we call ourselves now, where the story of 2006:
“It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.”
So if “You” are so important, click over to the BBC’s Have Your Say section, to read how “You” are reacting to this honour.
It makes for salutory reading and cuts through some of the hype. The most popular comment is from Andrew Taylor in the UK and reads:
“Sounds like they couldn’t be bothered to actually choose someone.
‘Hey, let’s just give it to everyone.’
‘Great idea. Lets go to the pub.’”
Others are taking it a bit more seriously: “This is just a publicity stunt. The growth of internet news makes Time magazine (and its competitors) increasingly irrelevant to modern life,” says David Russell of Newton Mearns.
The final word from Satya Banerji in Mumbai, India, who places the decision in context: “Much of what people, including I, self-publish on the Internet is of uncertain quality, and is actually a form of narcissism. Awards should be given for action and service, rather than for what is often casual expression. Nevertheless, breaking the hegemony of publishers and editors is a worthy development.”
Filed under: Web 2.0
December 14, 2006 • 2:35 pm
Thanks to the CBC blog for alerting us to the release of the CRTC report on the future environment for broadcasting in Canada.
According to the report, available in full here, the Canadian broadcasting system has yet to feel the impact of new media.
“The record of this proceeding confirms that Canadians’ use of new audio-visual technologies continues to grow significantly and, for younger Canadians in particular, represents a shift in media consumption patterns. Nevertheless, the majority of submissions suggest that, to date, any negative financial impact on the broadcasting system caused by such changes in media consumption patterns has been marginal.”
But the report does acknowledge that things are changing. For example, it says that while podcasting has yet to take off, it is increasing in popularity, especially among younger Canadians.
This is hardly surprising. After all, this is a generation growing up with Google, YouTube, Flickr. This is what media means to them. Mainstream TV and radio are not going to disappear overnight, but the shift in media consumption will gather pace in the coming years.
Filed under: Canada, internet
December 13, 2006 • 6:29 am
The folks behind Wikipedia are applying taken their open-source approach to knowledge to news.
They have set up Openserving, offering a free, collaborative news blog.
“We think it’s going to be like Time-Warner – today’s news, today’s opinion,” CEO Gil Penchina told Journalism.co.uk.
From the official news release:
“Wikia’s OpenServing extends the essence of the open source model – free software and content – to all aspects of web-based computing. The six pillars of Wikia’s OpenServing offering are: free software, free bandwidth, free storage, free computing power, free content over the Internet, and giving away 100% of the ad inventory and revenue to bloggers and website owners who partner with Wikia. By tapping Wikia’s OpenServing utility, anyone can set up and maintain their own collaborative content project for news and opinions for free.”
It is an interesting concept. But I wonder if we need another free, web publishing platform. After all, there are a myriad of free blogging tools already available.
Where Openserving might be able to carve a niche for itself is in providing web publishing for projects with multiple contributors. I’ve already signed up for an account. Why? To try it out and experiment with this approach to web publishing. The site is not live yet, but you can find the holding page here.
Filed under: Web 2.0, internet
December 12, 2006 • 11:42 am
The issue of the manipulation of images has become far more pressing in a digital age. In August it caused red faces at Reuters, when it emerged that a photo of the bombing of Lebanon had been doctored.
The photographer in question, Adnan Hajj, was fired and all the 920 images he had taken were recalled by Reuters. But the damage was done and the global reputation of the news agency suffered as a result.
News organisations have rules about how far an image can be treated in Photoshop. But now Reuters is taking steps to try to reassure the public and rebuild trust. In an address to the Globes Media Conference in Tel Aviv, CEO Tom Glocer talked about new measures for greater transparency regarding its photojournalism.
From his blog:
“I am pleased to announce today that we are working with Adobe and Canon to create a solution that enables photo editors to view an audit trail of changes to a digital image, which is permanently embedded in the photograph, ensuring the accuracy of the image.
We are still working through the details and hope this will be a new standard for Reuters and I believe should be the new industry standard.”
Glocer goes on to reassure his staff that this is not because he doesn’t trust his photographers. Instead it is about offering “total and full transparency of our work”.
This is a sensible way of reacting to the controversy. Rather than just saying to the public, trust it, Reuters is giving the audience a way of checking that that trust is well placed.
Greater transparency is good for journalism and good for the public.
Filed under: new media
December 10, 2006 • 11:31 pm
There has been a flurry of debate on whether the launch of Yahoo’s citizen journalism portal, You Witness news spells the end for the professional photojournalist.
No one can deny that some of the most compelling recent news images were taken by amateurs on mobile phones, such as from the London Tube bombings.
For the perspective from a professional on the rise of ‘phonajournalism :
“Aesthetics don’t seem to matter much to the millions of viewers watching their neighbors re-enact the forbidden dance on YouTube. Nor will proper camera management mean alot to the private citizens who will capture the next global calamity from every possible angle. Lastly, proper cinematography won’t be on the minds of news executives who will, if they’re smart, be way too busy shoving these myriad of images on-line, on-air and in your face.”
There are two key points to note. Firstly, the quality of cameraphones is improving all the time, as is that of consumer videocams.
But while the images may get sharper, I don’t think this will mean the end of the professional photojournalist. There may be fewer in the future, but sites like Flickr show there is still a demand for well-shot and composed images.
Filed under: citizen journalism
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