Ten things that digital said it would change and b*******ks all it has

Here's ten things digital could have changed, but hasn't. From this mornings Digital hasn't cut it

1. We're still interested in those self-interested subjects e.g. fame, celeb, meism. If anything digital expands conditions for all of us to be self-centred.

2. We've hardly invented a different journalism, and if we have its popularity is along the lines of Hogwarts and big foots. Sighted once in a while,  mythical ever so often, and trammelled where there are green shoots into oblivion.

3. Digital: the have and nots of traditionalism have become the haves and have-nots of the new system.

4. The view of the world is hegemonically based around a corpus of digital opinion. Attend two or more digital conferences and see the same people talking about their same thing. Thank Goodness Kenya's tech society is punching about its weight.

David Dunkley Gyimah reflecting on the digital gravy train

5.  When was the last time you went to a tech meeting and the diversity of people e.g Women and people of colour blew you away?  Nah ! Thought so. I was at one two weeks ago. No comment!
Africa digital, India digital... the revolution is still shaping.

6. Digital has become so corrosive as to discombobulate cultures. We all seek solace in a hashtag culture that erodes rather than strengthens. Somehow too, digital has become a Western come-to-product.  If you've nothing to say, even though you might have bombs raining down on you, shut up, as we listen to an ageing Joe 90 parachuted in and out of the news zone to give us a peak.

7. Have we become less experimental now? Was 2000-2005 the last of the chaotic experiments, with big ambitions to change the world. Because now everything looks so well defined as to embolden complacency and erectile dysfunction set in because, guess what. There's no rush anymore, and yes you get this thing digital.  Example, I was a juror for one of the UK's top media awards. A newcomer to the field won the prize for innovation. They went back to their offices and relaunched their show, er, to look like every other media. Missing the point completely, why they were chosen.

8. Most of the conferences and water holes of the digital spark of the 2000-2005 have folded. Others have been taken over by the multi-companies, who dictate the agenda. Yes I read Clue Train  Manifesto when it first came out too.

9. Digital makes us less empathetic. You notice this in tertiary education. The availability of everything renders little emotional premium attached to the pursuit of that something. It's almost as if there's been a technological revolution, but not a social - digital one. Listen to the lyrics of Thabo and the Real Deal

Politicians are too concerned with winners, when they should be referees...
They'e got the crew in the pocket that's the news that we're watching so religiously         So when we lose, which we do they can tranquilise us effectively.

10. Explore what you can do for others, not what you can do for yourself. Otherwise proclaim yourself an absolutist. Alas, there's no problem in doing so, but stop calling yourself digital social networker. P.S BTW this summation is all relative to who you are and your cultural standing. So yes you could vehemently disagree.


David Dunkley Gyimah is a senior lecturer, completing his PhD in an area of digital. More on him here.

Responding to Prepare for the Future, Skip the Present

To Prepare for the Future, Skip the Present

‘… today’s obsession with saving newspapers has meant that, for the most part, media companies have failed to plan adequately for tomorrow’s digital future.’

By Edward Roussel who is digital editor of the Telegraph Media Group (TMG)

Ed wrote a truly fine piece on , Nieman Reports (Harvard site). I have a few friends who are former Nieman scholars, so often take a run around the site. Do read the piece. Below was my response.

David Dunkley Gyimah says:

January 11, 2009 at 3:22pm

"Stop trying to control everything and just let go! LET GO! "

One of the more memorable aphorisms in 1999 from David Finch's "Fight Club".

Quite a few media execs are picking themselves up, handkerchief dabbing that upper lip; either they've got a hang of these abstract new rules and expressions e.g. (SEO, code-event driven multimedia) or they've confined themselves to the thinking: "it's all gonna stop soon - this madness".

This year we're told to expect the following:

- Increased traction to mobile web; writing twitter type micro stories
- Refinements in search string optimisation
- More APIs encouraging greater mash ups
- Thermo, 3D, and further breakthroughs in HD web video and videojournalism.

And then as one respected company, Razorfish, put it, expect more of the unexpected.

Sociologists might refer to this period of uncertainty and abstractness between journalism and the media's comprehension as "Grand Theory", when what we appear to be caught in is a highly fluid phase of Deduction.

Meaning you can match customs [macro and micro] and behaviours, to the way viewers and readers are inter and (intra) reacting with a myriad of new exhausting apps and modifications - spawning new social theories.

But you need to be in it, to see it, let alone win, which certainly shouldn't turn you into a techie shepherd, but open to the idea of the speed and paradigms of change affecting the media/consumer/ etc.

Countless newspapers, particular the big brands with room for "Chatham House" rule type experimenting, are already in there.

And, building up those figures may help thwart any future shocks. Or should that be "those future shocks".

Old sea hands scoff at 5m waves; quiet storm, they say, she'll get a lot more rougher yet.

As Ed put it, the dominant newspapers have an advantage over start-ups.....but time is running out.

Here in academia, and outside, with the an eye and modules on the future, a new generation of all round digi-journalists is gestating.

Thought-swilling piece Ed, and I have enjoyed the training and interaction with your extremely bright trainee multimedia journalists.