Working for, not against

As discussed by Alex Bruns, the development of new technologies have made possible the rise of citizen journalism, however its sheer popularity speaks more to the broader misgivings the public have about mainstream journalism. The one-to-many communication structure of old media forms put the gatekeepers in a dangerously powerful position, a sentiment echoed by many authors.  Additionally, the commercialisation of mass media means that news has become commoditised, so how can journalists represent the interests of the public when “media is directed at consumers rather than citizens” (Street 2011, p. 14). Citizen journalism gives power back to the people.

Some of the problems of citizen journalism is that ordinary people often won’t have the resources behind them to engage in comprehensive fact checking or conduct interviews with experts, and they have no institutional guidelines that bind them to balanced reporting. While everyone can agree that many media conglomerates have an agenda around which they report the news (ahem, News Corp), there are also trustworthy sources like the BBC.  I don’t think citizen journalism should replace traditional news sources, however I think the threat it currently poses to the mainstream media has encouraged an evaluation of the industry. The government has called for an inquiry to assess the benefits of a independent body to regulate the media beyond our current and failing system.

If trust in mainstream media can be restored, I think the benefits of citizen journalism will be maximised if the two communication systems can work together, filling the gaps where the other is lacking.

Top down, bottoms up

I currently doing a lot of research for another subject into the failures of the traditional media system and what social media has meant for increasing political participation. I was really happy to discover that many of the ideas we've been exploring in DIGC202 has helped inform my discussion, in particular Jenkins' theories on participatory culture and a shift toward many-to-many communication structures. Here's a run down of some of my research:

Politics and the media are intricately linked, and it follows that declining levels in voter turnout reflect a failure in the current system.  The one-to-many communication structure of old media – television, newspapers and magazines – proscribe the viewer with a spectator role. Moreover, extreme commercialization and commoditization of mass media has resulted in a disillusioned and distrustful public. The Internet, and social media in particular, now offer many-to-many communication on a global scale, which is a fundamental shift from the old media model.  People are now able to access information from the 'bottom up' and the success of social media to promote engaged politics arises out of an environment where audiences seek alternative media sources because traditional ones have failed them, and the citizen-citizen structure of digital networks are a welcome change from the centralised journalism of media conglomerates.

While different sources have informed my discussion, a very influential text that is referenced by many authors is Castell's The Information Age, which is the last book in a trilogy that dissects the network society, globalization, technology dominance.  Extremely relevant to all the topics in this course!

Tryrannosaurus - Week 7

Chris Anderson paints a great picture of the limitations of the big-hit model of distribution with his metaphor the “tyranny of physical space” - and let’s face it, the online market place has to be one of the best things to happen to the distribution of entertainment media.  Its still quite amazing to see though that even with the unlimited possibilities for choice, the mainstream media industry – the Biebers, Transformers, Gaga… in other words the worst type of music and movies (in my opinion) – still remain just that: big hits.

While I use Amazon all the time, I’ve never stopped to think about how truly revolutionary it is, and how they manage to offer a personalised service – without having to do any of the leg work.  Another interesting fact about the new digital model that Anderson mentions in an interview with Folio Magazine is that the freshness of media content matters less these days – people will continue linking to the story even after its “old news” if the story strikes a chord with people.  Anderson says:

“A study recently showed that half the traffic to Web sites is after 36 hours. The old model of newspapers was that 100 percent of their readership is within first 36 hours and zero after that. The extraordinary interest in things we previously discounted, like archives, is the real lesson of the search and blog traffic era.”

I guess for budding entrepreneurs the key priority is a great search functionality. In the attention economy whether your product is or isn’t used often comes down to its accessibility. I know when I’m doing my uni work, if Summon directs me to a broken link on a journal article, I’m not going to pursue it, rather I move on because I know there’s more out there. Another tip, for those in the market for success, is to consider this very surprising statistic from researchers Bernardo and Huberman:

“…an analysis of the production histories and success dynamics of 10 million videos from

YouTube revealed that the more frequently an individual uploads con-tent the less likely it is that it will reach a success threshold. This paradoxical result is further compounded by the fact that the average quality of submissions does increase with the number of uploads, with

the likelihood of success less than that of playing a lottery.”