Tuesday, August 18, 2009

And the robocop new media debate oldpost

New media demands more than ‘robo-journalists’ is an oldish post from Nicole, revived via tweets. C'mon.... I'm assuming she is a student at City based on her "my lecturer" tag.

It's a fine post, which pulls up that ol chestnut of online vs new media and do it yourself.

There is no holy grail answer for these, but a series of ideas and probables. There are though some constants. In 12 hours it will be nightime, then day. And as one of my mates and a star CNBC market analyser tells me, there's another big wopper in the works.

Frankly I'd settle for the fact that at 100mb streaming as the norm, I'll be watching the news in my glass of milk as I drink it the same time.

I'm a bit bullish, not like me, with my response, but you have to remember I have emerged from 14 days of research. I feel like talking : ) Read Nicole's posts and here's my response below




The trouble with market corrections - an unexpected event wreaking havoc which eventually is steered back - is there are casualties. A lot of equity is lost, some written off altogether.

In effect, albeit not in the classic case, this is another market correction and they'll be another one, and another.

From 1994, satellite, then cable, then the Net, news has had to buffet a series of disruptions. And if you trend extrapolate with more robust tech networks in the offing, we're only at the tip of this flux.

News orgs might just have to transform themselves, not only as daily providers, but with in-house (on campus preferably) teams working in tandem and tighter with academia/techs addressing in many ways what are driven - phenomenologies impacting news.

Ok that's not what News does, yes! But these are changing times, and it:

1. affords a (likely) integral stream of students into this metamorphosing industry.
2. affords (not always) a potential canary effect of the latest disruptive events.
3. allows for a genuine rolling debate between groups about changing semiotics to be addressed.

Slightly to the side of this argument what Miami University and the Knight Foundation are doing is very impressive. It's worth looking into.

Cheers david
Snr Lecturer, University of Westminter
Artist in Residence, South Bank Centre