Post on 28-Nov-2014
description
The Amateur, the Audience,
the Crowd, and other strange
forms of journalism.
Alek Tarkowski
The Amateur, the Audience,
the Crowd, and other strange
forms of journalism.(And the Crisis too!)
Alek Tarkowski
This presentation is available under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Poland license(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/pl/)Some rights reserved by Alek Tarkowski.
Slides on CC licenses borrowed from Jon Phillips (http://www.slideshare.net/rejon)
The MediumThe AudienceThe LawThe Money
The Authors(The Alternative)
The MediumThe AudienceThe LawThe Money
The Authors(The Alternative)
The Crisis
The issue
The issue* end of press?* end of journalism?* end of public debate / public sphere?
The issue* end of press?* end of journalism?* end of public debate / public sphere?An alternative to endism?
The Medium
1981: online press
1981: online press
technological shift* key trends: 1) global connectivity; 2) speed increase; 3) democratization of production / distribution capacity* creative destruction of the media / press sector
* technology does not determine – but ofers crucial afordances* key lines of division: online / ofine; free / paid; author / audience
“A lot of things are happening on the Internet that never happened before because the Internet is a vehicle for everyone. The mass media is no longer only for the powerful, and that’s a huge change for the entire newspaper and news industry” Craig Newmark
“The people formerly known as the audience wish to inform media people of our existence, and of a shift in power that goes with the platform shift you’ve all heard about”.Jay Rosen
The Audience
Pew Research Center for the Internet and the Press* 1st time more people rely on internet than newspapers* among under 30, internet as important as television (60%) (from 68% vs. 34%)
Poland, D-Link Technology Trend: online communities (2008)What content do you fnd interesting?User generated 46%Journalistic 19%Corporate 4%
Traditional media remain an important source onlineNYTimes: 20 million readers online / 1 million readers in print
The Law
„archaic press law does not take account of digital technologies”
Leszek Szymczak, Gazeta Bytowska
Media regulationOld standards in the times of convergent mediaPress lawCopyright lawTelecom law (shape of infrastructure)Professional code of conduct
The Money
The problem with press today: lack of good business model, not of good news
Why we need a business model? Because media institutions are important of the quality of news (and the public sphere).
„Because newspapers are a rusty industry. [...] They print lists of readers every day on the obituary page. Worse, as a class they are resolutely clueless about how to adapt to a world that is increasingly networked and self-informing”Doc Searls
* Free* Micropayments* Voluntary payments (Vodo)* Micropatronage* Press piracy* Example of Radiohead / NIN
The Alternative
Free software●Steven Weber: success of open source - as a model●“open source is not necessarily good or morally benefcial”●… but we tend to underestimate value of openness (James Boyle)
Free culture Inspired by free software – applied to cultural works and knowledgeAt its core, a legal project – to regain a lost balanceAbout 10 years old
The inheritanceCommons based peer production (Yochai Benkler) (free) common good + new models of production and distribution
Elephants Dream
Some rights reserved
Free culture From intellectual property to intellectual generosity
Free licenses for every type of creativity
Creative Commons Some rights reserved – in particular, „as little as possible rights reserved”Millions of works, millions of people?Marginal – but at the frontier of change
The alternative* successfully developed for programming* clear examples for art, culture, education, science* how about journalism?
The Authors
“Terrorism made Stacey a victim; technology made him a reporter”
Eliot Ward, CC BY
“The frst-day story no longer belongs to newspapers - and hasn't for a long time. It isn't even the property of professional journalists any longer”
“[...] we could be assured that when a big news event happened, witnesses would be online with accounts of it in a matter of minutes. News was never like that”
Janis Krums
David Katz/Obama for America, CC BY-NC-SA
* amateurs vs. professionals* informal vs. formal* when do you become a journalist?* crowdsourcing does not mean full participation
Douglas Rushkof„Most stations are looking at the listener community as a bunch of consumers to be segmented, targeted, manipulated - the sort of spreadsheet approach to radio as opposed to the passionate approach”
Douglas Rushkof* involve listeners rather than just corporations / labels* invite not common denominator, but highest quality of listeners - „fans”* answer their needs * niche, not mass
* independent media are not new!* Indymedia* media hacking * (TV Solidarność)
Who are the new authors?
* one million penguins1500 individuals 11,000 edits‘not the most read, but possibly the most written novel in history‘75000 visitors 280,000 page views
* Current TV* users (called VC2 Producers) contribute 3-7min “pods”* content fltered by registered users through voting* pods are approved by Current's on-air programming department* “pods” are a portion of aired material
BBC Creative Archive* broadcaster's archives as free culture* ultimately just access (iPlayer) – Audience, not Authors
Assignment Zero* "trend reporting gone pro-am" – on an open platform * trend: spread of peer production / wisdom-of-crowd eforts* readers know more than journalists* goal: 80 features
Assignment Zero* get division of labor right: right size of chunks* self-assignment rarely works* sudden coordination costs of success* forming a whole out of piecescrucial build-up of common background knowledge
Assignment Zero* successful – but in a completely diferent manner than traditional journalism* depends on building a community* long-term process
Blogging* Rathergate: bloggers verify CBS 60 minutes story on G.W. Bush's army record* Poland: Bloggers prove a professional journalist is a plagiarist
Blogging* Kataryna: blogosphere has no importance whatsoever […] let's forget about replacing traditional media with blogs – these are two parallel words that rarely interact and do not compete”
Blogging* Kataryna: blogosphere is not efcient at “looking at journalists' hands”; not that it cannot do it – it's just that nobody cares
Blogging* not journalism, but commentary?* public debate / public sphere
Civic journalism* hype?* from civic journalism projects to a feld for “new media tools deployment for civic ends”* Youtube, Flickr, SMS, Facebook...* bloggers, eyewitnesses, pro-am journalists, random persons...
Civic journalism* diferent than „real” journalism* crowdsourcing as „civic” journalism * diference between democracies and totalitarian regimes?* it's not the name that's important
Summing up...* crowdsource* open source* civic journalism* public sphere* social media – horizontal communication
The future
The future
What can I do?* Keep an open mind* Write Express* Support favourite (small) title* Make educational resources
The future
What can I do?* Keep an open mind* Write Express* Support favourite (small) title* Make educational resources* Ride bikes! Grow plants! Bake bread!