New and Old Media, Participation, and Information

March 1

The profusion of low-cost media production and distribution has led to the rise of an alternative citizen-led media sector. Is this a passing fad of enthusiastic amateurs or the beginning of a fundamental restructuring of the way media and news are produced and consumed? Will the current trends lead to more information, better information, and better informed people or to an infinite stream of unreliable chatter? Will it lead to a more politically engaged populace or to an increasingly polarized society that picks its sources of information to match its biases and ignorance?

Readings

• John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney, The Life and Death of Great American Newspapers
• Media Re:public Overview - Read at least the executive summary
• Knight Commission Report on Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy - Read at least the executive summary, recommendations and conclusions
• Nieman Journalism Lab, Four crowdsourcing lessons from the Guardian’s (spectacular) expenses-scandal experiment
• Sunlight Foundation website - just look around the site to see what they are up to
• Pennenberg, WikiLeaks' Julian Assange: 'Anarchist,' 'agitator,' 'arrogant' and a journalist

Optional Readings

• FTC Staff Discussion Draft, Potential Policy Recommendations to Support the Reinvention of Journalism - just skim it
• Leonard Downie, Jr., and Michael Schudson, The Reconstruction of American Journalism
• We The Media, Dan Gillmor (the Introduction is a good start, so to speak)
• Jay Rosen, Bloggers vs. Journalists Is Over
• Shirky on Social Media

Links from Class

• Reposting this because, after reading all the material for this week, I'm realizing that it's outrageously relevant. Watch it!:
  • ONLINE NEWS: Public Sphere or Echo Chamber? - ~~mcforelle 17:00, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I can readily sympathize with this week’s selected authors. It is unquestionable that the state of journalism is declining, and it was declining long before the Internet was to available to blame. I had been involved in local politics from the mid 1980’s until a few years ago. At the start there were always 3 or 4 reporters attending the Selectmen’s and Finance board meetings, and 1 or 2 at every other board or commission meeting. By the time I “retired” from politics only one local paper remained. The sole reporter couldn’t (and still can’t) attend the meetings so he would call the local officials to ask what transpired, then write the report based on what he was told without any further fact checking. Often the newspaper reports are wildly inaccurate. While the newspaper was the government watchdog of the past, today it is usually the lone gadfly who attends all the meetings, asks the tough questions, and does whatever he can to make his voice heard. The Internet is his most powerful amplifier. -Chris Sura 00:44, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The fact that journalism was already declining long before the widespread of the Internet was novel to me. I assumed that emergence of citizen-led media is taking significant roles of reporting and distributing information away from the conventional media. Was it a lame excuse of the existing journal entities to explain their reduced power which is caused by factors other than the bloggers? --Yu Ri 09:19, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

It is interesting that a proposed solution to the decline of American journalism, is to look at government subsidies. Would the fact that journalists are subsidized by the government in some fashion, make it a target for political and other influences? What would stop Congress or the President from cutting off subsidies, or having undue influence on an investigation by a reporter for an article they did not like? The reality is that the world is changing rapidly, and that includes the way we consume information. Social media is what helped fuel revolutions across Tunisia, and the Arab world. This was done by empowering the people with information; not through state subsidized news outlets... Earboleda 17:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)