New Journalism, New thinking

Famous illusion - here for some more to test your point of view with friends

I very rarely post about the Masters module I run; it's just seems a bit off limits though of course I don't in the least mind students posting.

Some even blog live.

Today however we looked at the mindset of the journalist, or future journalists in first contact for online journalism

It allowed some interaction with paradigms and the "aha" syndrome.

One of the biggest threats facing us isn't the deludge of new applications and hardware tools on the market; all of which I'd play around with if I had the chance, or even the trend-to-dismiss web 2.0, but the mindset that predetermines how we percieve what we do.

- - - Dyson's thoughts here
- - -

If big old crinky institutions have their way, the emperors clothes would still be the status quo - producers swearing that their tried and tested model works.

All the signs though are that matters will continue to evolve, so whilst we may have to learn one bit of software or another, that's not really the point for me.

Those determined or bloody minded enough could sooner learn Final Cut by or Flash via books.

I know I first did.

No, one of the issues bedevilling us is about our propensity to accept change, to be sure about the uncertainty ahead that there is no certainty, that today's blog may be tomorrow's "Pass it on" and that we should not fear the unknown.

We're at sea
We've been sailing a ship as deck hands where the seas have been fairly calm, occasionally rocky but nothing we couldn't handle and now all hell's broken loose.

It's rough, really rough. We're outside our comfort zone and it's scaring the bejeez out of us.

Question is how adaptive or creative are you at finding solutions?

Rather reminds me of the APRANET story, of the men with high foreheads submitting their original idea to the military brass, for a pre-internet system.

"This Sirs will do the job in command and control capable of relaying a message in the theatre of a nuclear first strike war".

The brass saw them off; bring back something else, was the riposte.

"We'll give you more, so much more that you'll not know what to do with it", seems to have been the attitude.

The Net is born.

Who do you see?
The picture of the old woman - young lady is a favourite as it tests our capacity to see another person's point of view when it's not at first plainly evident there is one.

It further allows for the sudden sharp intake of breath and exclamation: "Aha", when the alternative image appears.

As a Chem-Maths student I used to love that feeling producing an organic compound which would show a high yield with minimum impurities when passed through a Gas Chromotograph.

The roots of journalism and storytelling will prevail, our ability to inform and entertain using variant models, which we haven't even fathomed must sit at the core of what we do.

That's progress - something big media has cosily shared within itself, parrying, where it can, any disruptive force.

It's no surprise that within computing science and technology, young brains have played a major contribution to the force of the web.

We should equally, sans the politics, not be surprised to see the present crop of tomorrow's journalist pushing this media completely of the scale - our percieved scale.

Change is good.