Archive for May, 2006
Nitin Desai Draws on We Media Inspiration at Pre-IGF Public Hearing
I think the We Media Global Forum made a good impression on Nitin Desai, special advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General and a keynoter at the We Media Global Forum. At a pre-IGF public hearing in Geneva today, he said:
So I was in a meeting recently in London which was organized by the BBC, Reuters, and Media Center. And that meeting was much more interactive than many — very little preparation, very little paper. It wasn’t as if papers were prepared and circulated in advance on the theme for discussion. They relied much more on panels, directed panels, keynotes, et cetera. But more than that, what struck me was the way in which they brought the outside in, through the blogs.
There were people inside the room who were putting what was going on onto a blog and getting immediate responses. And a space was created there where, let’s say, in the course of a discussion, the chair would turn to the — a person who was keeping track of the blogs, and say, “Now tell us, what’s come from the blogs so far on the topic of our discussion?” And I was amazed at the distances from which comments were coming for this meeting. There are obviously many insomniacs out there in the East, because they must have been doing this at 3:00 at night or something, from as far as I could figure out. There were instantaneous responses coming from Japan, Malaysia, Egypt, India, China. And it was quite interesting.
And I thought, these are the things we must do.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan established an Advisory Group to help him organize the newly formed Internet Governance Forum (IGF), which will hold multi-stakeholder dialogue on Internet governance. Mr. Desai is chairman of that Advisory Group. Today’s public hearing was held in preparation for the first IGF meeting, to take place, also in Geneva, May 22-23. The hearing transcripts are here.
Thank you, Kiernan McCarthy, for reporting this on your blog.
TAG: wemedia
tags: No commentsWe Media – What’s Next?
OK, I’m ending my post-London silence. I’ve been in recovery mode, catching up on sleep, reflecting and thinking a lot about what happened at the We Media Global Forum in London. Richard Dreyfuss spoke there about the power and danger of speed, and about the need for reflection and civil discourse. Response to Richard was pretty divided, and I’m pretty sure I heard more negative comments than positive about his talk. I thought it was one of the more challenging and important contributions to the program. You can listen and decide for yourself. I agree with Richard’s central point – that sometimes the best ideas, and responses, take time to form. So … I’ve taken some time to think.\
I hope you heard something about what happened in London – thanks if you loved it, sorry if you didn’t – and thanks especially if you were there, followed online or sent someone. If not, you can catch up at your leisure with reports, audio and more at the conference web site.
Whatever comes next, we want and need help.
To begin with, I hope the conversation here on our blog can resume – not by dissecting what worked and didn’t work in London (plenty of both), but by looking ahead and talking about ideas and actions we need to pursue to expand and improve the conversation. Let us know if you’d like to become a regular contributor to this blog.
We also need to refine and figure out if there’s any interest or relevance in the Call to Action we discussed in London. PLEASE take a look at the wiki and please tell people about it.
1. What Happened
More than 300 people from 27 countries attended the forum, along with tens of thousands of people who connected one way or another through the internet, through coverage in blogs and other media and through a live worldwide radio broadcast from the BBC. More than 47,000 completed an e-survey conducted during the forum. The forum included, as usual for us, an intentionally eclectic mix of participants, representing not only different regions but different industries, professions, personal circumstances and worldviews.
We released new data collected in 10 countries that showed, among other things, that young adults are passionately interested in news and current events, that they prefer to check many sources for their news and, no surprise, that they’re going online to get it. Here’s what else we found: nearly 1 in 3 people said they trust blogs AND 1 in 4 said they dropped a news sources in the last year because it lost their trust. Hmmm …
That’s a tough act to follow. We don’t know that we can reach more people or achieve more impact with our next projects. But we’re going to give it a shot. We do know that any success and any impact will depend on collaboration, ideas and support from around the world. We hope you’ll keep the conversation going and bring others into it.
2. What’s Next
We announced a call to action to support and participate in something big: the We Media Global Initiative.
The intent of the initiative is to harness the power of information technologies and human ingenuity for the common good by inspiring and incubating investment in bottom-up media.
To learn more about the initiative, please study and contribute to this WE MEDIA wiki.
The We Media Global Initiative is a work in progress. It’s meant to be an inspiration and provocation – and a set of specific objectives. We hope many organizations and individuals can adopt and become partners in the Initiative and then act to meet the objectives.
Please spread the word – tell people about the initiative, link to it- and help us refine the thinking and gather commitments. You can start by forwarding this note to your friends, your family, your board, your staff, your investors, your key executives and anyone else you think would be interested. Ask them all to think about how they can get involved. Can they commit time, people, resources, ideas or money?
3. Make a Commitment
Post your ideas in the wiki, or call us if you want to talk privately.
Can you help? Do you want to? How about your organization, or those of your friends? In London last week we saw two examples of corporate commitments: Picsel, a technology company based in Glasgow, said it would provide, at no cost, its mobile content system to any non-commercial pilot project. We’ll work with Picsel to clarify what that means. Meanwhile, Marcus Xiang, CEO of PDX.cn, also made a commitment in response to our call to action. He offered his Chinese language mobile blog platform to Self-Help for the Elderly, a San Francisco non-profit that works with Chinese Americans. He met the group’s CEO, Anni Chung, at the forum last week.
4. Stay Connected
Our events, research, networking and other projects are driven by our social mission: to enable a better-informed idea. The We Media Global Initiative is an explicit attempt to couple ideas and good intentions with actions.
If you’ve followed our work closely then you know that the changing nature of what we call “Know-Trust” networks is one of the three major factors we’ve identified to explain culture in the connected society. (The others are the digital everything and the empowered individual). What is trust? Good question, we don’t know exactly, and that’s why trust was the theme of the London forum and still the primary focus of our research this year. We’ll be working on some additional analysis of the poll data in the next few weeks. The global poll was itself just the first step. We’re also working with one of the world’s foremost experts on trust networks, cultural anthropologist Karen Stephenson, to help us hone our thinking on the role of trust in a networked society.
Our 10-nation study explored trust in media and governments “to operate in the best interest of our society.” Is that part of your mission? One of the theories we’re testing is that social responsibility is a necessary, core value for businesses in the connected society – and the study suggests this is certainly the case for media.
You can dig into the poll data here.
Let us know if you’d like to arrange a private briefing or consultation on what it all means.
One message we heard loud and clear in London: we need to “put more we” in We Media. That will certainly be among our goals for our next projects, and for the projects we hope will emerge long before we meet again.
5. Mark Your Calendars
The 2007 We Media forum will be February 8 in Miami. We hope you’ll be there, bring some friends AND bring some new ideas. We hope some of what you’ll bring will be successes or new ideas to fulfill the objectives of the We Media Global Initiative. We will again do our best to bring people and ideas from a variety of sectors to provoke both conversation and action.
Let me know if you have ideas or speaker suggestions for Miami – or post your ideas in our wiki.
And, of course, we maintain one small outpost of the conversation – let us know if you’d like to become a regular contributor to this blog. We need some help getting it going again. Or, please comment when the mood strikes.
TAG: wemedia
tags: No commentsBlogagogy
From the Wikipedia:
Demagogy is the set of methods used by demagogues. It is a strategy of obtaining power by appealing to the popular prejudices, fears, and expectations of the public, usually through an impassioned use of rhetoric and propaganda; centered upon “raising up of the people” for something to be done.
A variation, suitable for our times:
Blogagogy is a strategy of obtaining power by appealing to the popular prejudices, fears, and expectations of citizen or participatory journalism as represented by but not exclusively blogs, usually through an impassioned use of rhetoric and propaganda – online and elsewhere – centered upon “raising up of the people” for something to be done about mainstream media, but without any real purpose or constructive action.
Trish Grier touches on the theme of blogagogy in her Corante post, “The ‘False Divide’ between Journalists and Bloggers,” when she says,
“Still, I wonder how much of the perception of the False Divide is totally that of Big Media, or if there are bloggers who like the division and have no desire to bridge the divide. Perhaps, for some, the Divide serves an ego need, or they feel that their role is best when they are free-speech pitbulls rather than as media compadres…”
TAGS: Blogging, Blogs, citizen journalism, Journalism, media
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
Bloggers like Addisferenji
keep us informed as authentic news are hard to come by from oppressive regimes.
A Call to Action
NOTE: The Wiki for The WeMedia Call to Action is now available. Click here to learn more.Listen to the session: Call to Action | The We Media Global Initiative
Moderated by William C. Weiss (Media Center) and Andrew Nachison (Media Center), with Jeff Belk (QUALCOMM), Jean-Marie Colombani (Le Monde), Graeme Ferguson (Vodafone), Scott Heiferman (Meetup), Dr. Paul Jacobs (QUALCOMM, pre-taped), Katherine von Jan (Infinia)Download MP3s: Part 1 | Part 2
In addition to providing a forum for people who normally don’t have a chance to interact, and as many tools as we can to enable those interactions, The Media Center is also focused on cultivating real, actionable goals to derive from its events and forums. The following is a draft from a Wiki established to help assist in that effort:
The Situation
The media plays a key role in discovering, explaining and distributing information essential to informed self-government and to fostering engaged, knowledgeable citizenship. The internet, wireless networks, and widely available mobile technologies now allow ordinary citizens not only to consume media but to create, share, aggregate, remix and redistribute it – to BE media. Ordinary people, as well as institutions that were once thought of something other than media, are now direct participants in the media, increasing their power to communicate with each other and to hold governments to account.
The Ambition
To harness the power of information technologies and human ingenuity for the common good, we propose a worldwide We Media Global Initiative to invest in bottom-up media. The initiative will connect and inspire individuals and organizations to take action – to materially do something – to give voice to marginalised groups, to encourage government accountability in all countries and to help people not only access but productively apply and derive knowledge from the extraordinary volumes of information distributed throughout the connected society. It is also designed to create and incubate business and donor networks to sustain the initiative into the future.
The Model
The initiative is built around formal and informal collaboration between committed individuals and institutions at a local, national and global level. To utilise the benefits of digital media, the initiative will focus on promoting its activities through the web, but will also use face-to-face training and knowledge sharing events to complement the internet efforts. The initiative will benefit from knowledge and networks of professional and non-professional media producers, as well as technical and financial experts, companies, policy makers, non-governmental organizations and other supporters.
The Initiative will seek to tap into the shared knowledge, collective intelligence and capabilities of a wide range of professionals and industries, including: journalism, advertising, public relations, marketing, entertainment, finance, telecommunications, research, retail, healthcare, technology, philanthropy, NGOs, social activism, policy and academia.
All will benefit from exposure to one another through the Initiative.
The model for investment will include:
Make A Pledge
1. TIMEBANK
2. FUNDING
- Fund a training course
- Fund an online service
- Fund an event
- Fund WMN administration, investment, research and development and projects
3. TECHNICAL KIT
- Digital cameras
- PCs
- Mobile devises
- Etc.
4. AIRTIME/DISTRIBUTION
- Commit airtime and other means to distribute WMN content
We Media Global Forum participants will be committing their time and energy to specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and tangible goals in support of this call to action. We invite you to use the comments section of this entry to join us in tthis effort.
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
Katy has posted a starter list of what she wants to see the MSM recognize as they think about the Call to Action.
Point #2. FUNDING
who’s doing the transparency here.. is there any at all? or rather how’s the transparency of the funing being approached?
thank you.
In the Technical Kit there should be recommendations on what software to use, especially on what freeware & open source software.
From Influencing, Informing, thru Living are all nice; more helpful would be:
We Support — with free, high quality advice on free, high quality softwared.
Free Voice to Text SW would be nice, too. So more conversations could be saved and referenced later with text search.
I am a Nigerian journalist and journalism teacher who has been trying to understand what online journalism is all about. I’ve been receiving mail regularly from WE MEDIA and it is helping me to understand multimedia and online journalism,blogging and such other concepts.But I’m still not savvy about it all. Is there a kind of short term training you can organize or recommed for me, because I’m eager to tell my students about the new developments in journalism.Thank you.
Mudathir,
No training program could possibly be better than keeping an open mind and just diving into the online world: start your own blog and/or play with the social networking tools available for free or very little cost, join discussion lists or start your own, identify some of your favorite Web sites that address the issues you’re most interested in. Here’s an example of what one multimedia professor did with his class:
For an overview, read The Media Center’s seminal We Media report.
the best opportunies at WE Media
It is heartening to see a community develop around the needs of those of us who, while for the most part dwell at the ‘bottom of the pyramid, are thinking, acting bi-pedal humanoids. I am reminded of a few line of the great protest song, ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ by Arlo which has remained one on my own mantras -
‘And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a
study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I’m
singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar
situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a
situation like that there’s only one thing you can do and that’s walk into
the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say “Shrink, You can get
anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant.”. And walk out. You know, if
one person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and
they won’t take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an
organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said
fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and
walking out. And friends they may thinks it’s a movement.’
[Ref:- http://www.arlo.net/lyrics/alices.shtml [©1966,1967 (Renewed) by Appleseed Music Inc. All Rights Reserved.]]
It is therefor my hope that what we have here is a movement
Regards
Martin G. Smith
More audio from We Media available
Most of the sessions from We Media are now available for download in mp3 format.
Sessions with audio uploaded include the following:
Wednesday May 3, 2006 | BBC Television Centre | West London
13.40 Big Idea 2 | Media and Civic Discourse
With Richard Dreyfuss, Actor and Activist | Download MP3
14.10 Citizen Journalism Forum | Who’s Making the News?
:: BBC video on citizen reporting
:: Conversation moderated by Paul Holmes (Reuters), with Helen Boaden (BBC), George Brock (The Times), David Gyimah (Video Journalist), Andrew Hawken (MSN.com), Salam Pax (talkleft.com, via satellite)
Download MP3s: Part 1 | Part 2
15.10 Real World Forum | Meet the Digital Assassins
Moderated by Spencer Kelly (BBC)
Download MP3s: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
16.45 Real Time We Media | World Have Your Say
Live-radio and online broadcast, with Ros Atkins, Vera Kwakofi, Solomon Omollo, Rabiya Parekh, Mark Sandell (all BBC)
Download MP3s: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Thursday, May 4, 2006 | Reuters Global Headquarters | Canary Wharf
9.45 Global Forum | We the World
Global conversations via satellite from Reuters bureaus around the world
Asia and China (with satellite from Hong Kong)
Moderated by Rebecca MacKinnon (Global Voices), with rapporteur Rachel Rawlins (Global Voices), and Jean-Marc Coicaud (UNU), Rudy Chan (China.com), David Schlesinger (Reuters), Michael Tong (NetEase.com), Marcus Xiang (PDX.CN), We Media Fellows
Download MP3
13.00 We the World (cont’d) | Middle East (with satellite from Baghdad) Moderated by Keith Porter (Stanley Foundation), with Zuhair Al-Jezairy (Aswat Al Iraq),
Wadah Khanfar (Al Jazeera), Rami Khouri (Lebanon Daily Star), Dr. Michael Kraig (Stanley Foundation), Salah Negm (BBC), WM Fellows
Download MP3s: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
14.15 Big Idea 5 | A Global Call to Action
With Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute (via satellite from New York)
Download MP3
14.45 We the World (cont’d) | Africa
Moderated by Rachel Rawlins (Global Voices), with Ory Okolloh (Reuters), via Satellite from Johannesburg, South Africa, Akwe Amosu (OSI), Mathew Buckland (Mail & Guardian), Wilfred Kiboro (Nation Media Group), WM Fellows
Download MP3s: Part 1 | Part 2
16.00 Business Forum | Investing in We: Where’s the Money?
Moderated by Stephanie Flanders (BBC), with Rafat Ali (paidContent), Sebastian Grigg (Goldman Sachs), Carolyn McCall (Guardian), Shoba Purushothaman (TheNewsMarket), Dave Sifry (Technorati), Chris Ahearn (Reuters Media)
Download MP3s: Part 1 | Part 2
17.00 Call to Action | The We Media Global Initiative
Moderated by William C. Weiss (Media Center) and Andrew Nachison (Media Center), with Jeff Belk (QUALCOMM), Jean-Marie Colombani (Le Monde), Graeme Ferguson (Vodafone), Scott Heiferman (Meetup), Dr. Paul Jacobs (QUALCOMM, pre-taped), Katherine von Jan (Infinia)
Download MP3s: Part 1 | Part 2 (Includes closing remarks)
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
I have done an article for OhmyNews with a link to the audio.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=18&no=289490&rel_no=3
I also sent them an mp3 of the South Asia session as it seems to be missing and I made a recording of the stream.
You’re welcome to copy it and post it here, obviously.
My report implies that the mobile technology could become a challenge to existing western media. There is space to comment there.
I look forward to more contributions around this blog and future events. I found this past week or so a bit strange as I did three reports for OhmyNews from Exeter UK based on web sources. Maybe I have got a few things wrong through not being there but I think some UK background is in the reports somewhere.
what does it mean for the BBC?
The day after the forum, the BBC held it’s own internal meeting to digest and reflect some of the We Media thinking, with a panel chaired by Richard Sambrook, director of global news. The contributors were : Rebecca MacKinnon of Global Voices: Dan Gillmor, Director of the Center for Citizen Media and Author of We Media: Akwe Amosu of the Open Society Institute and founder of AllAfrica.com: and Salah Negm, newly appointed News Editor for BBC Arabic TV Service, and former Director of News at Al Arabiyah.
Vin Ray, the head of the BBC’s new college of journalism kicked things off by asking what does the participatory journalism phenomenon mean for the BBC’s journalism. Is it an addition? Or an alternative? Plus he got big yuks by a digression into the joys of Fisking, as defined by Wikipedia.
Richard kicked off by asking how many of the roughly 100 staff there regularly read blogs: about 30%
And how many wrote one?: 6 or so.
Then he asked the panel: what is it about participatory media that really changes the relationship between the BBC, say, and its audience?
Gillmor: It’s a shift from lecture mode to a conversation/seminar. The BBC can bring former audience/participants into the journalism itself, engaging them in your conversation. It’s necessary, but not easy.
Sambrook: Examples?
Gillmor: Disasters are easier to find eg LA Times editorial wiki. But they shouldn’t have given up. You should keep at it.
Sambrook: How’s it playing out in Africa?
Amosu: Newspapers and broadcasters were liberalised in early ’90s and brought in bright people, but there’s no experience with which to build ethical practices. Not up to standards of best of international media. So blogs, although rare (perhaps 1000 across the continent) are often of comparable if not better standard.
Sambrook: Do they hold governments and mainstream media to account?
Amosu: Absolutely. eg Addis Ferengi, still blogging about Ethiopia, but from abroad, since death threats.
Sambrook: What’s been the impact of satellite channels on the Middle East?
Negm: Nowadays no real difference between satellite and terrestrial TV. 154 satellite channels now, including semi-porn. Blogging is very popular but there are lots of blogs financed by poliitical entities or rich businessmen to affect public opinion. Also used a lot to affect the stock market eg in Saudi Arabia.
Question from floor: Who should choose which voices to amplify and how?
MacKinnon: Blogs are sources – just like other journalistic sources. The issues are the same. Is this person credible? What are the biases? In the US some news organisations are thinking that issues raised by blogs reflect the voice of the people. They don’t. Bloggers tend to be white middle-class people with time and broadband access.
Gillmor: Transparency is not a traditional journalistic principle. One we need to add. Also need to help improve media literacy and push up our internal BS meter. We need to come clear about the conflicts and process of journalism.
Q from floor: The BBC can find stories from blogs, source talent, aggregate or produce our own blogs. Which shouldn’t we do?
Amosu: I have a read problem with journalists doing their own blogs. It should be in the story.
Gillmor: Could be in newspaper tradition of “reporter’s notebook”
MacKinnon: I found it a good way of including the material that didn’t fit in a 2 minute TV story eg on the complexity of covering North Korea.
Amosu: More and more blogs are now declaring their disclosure rules.
Q from floor: tips to make the BBC an attractive place for public storytelling
Gillmor: The word is community – creating communities around geography or interest. Would suggest stories should say “here’s what we don’t know” and invite others to fill in the gap.
MacKinnon: good example is radioopensource - stories come from listeners/bloggers and they often return to stories later.
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
‘Big yuks’? What does that mean?
Just that for this audince, the unfamiliarity of the term – and it’s surprising appropriateness – caused some humour…
Leave the light on
We came, some didn’t. We blogged, others made their contributions felt in other ways, and then as the last person left the Reuters building you could almost hear the call: “leave the light on”.
In the last two days, a white piece of paper transformed into a full blown symphony of people meeting in person and online. We agreed and in some cases agreed to disagree. But all along we spoke. Some listened, others ignored the chatter, but we were aware of a presence.
Dialogue is a dynamic process, Newton’s 3rd law in motion . Whatever was started, should not end here. I met a number of interesting and innovative people. I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet as many as I would have liked, including fellow fellows.
But I,we leave with many thoughts and ideas. So to that end, thank yous are in order to wemedia: Andrew, Dale, Gloria, Beth, Chad et al and to the many who queried/interrogated vlogging, exchanged cards to catch up later e.g. Global Voices. It’s been emotional.
To the fellows, I look forward to us exchanging plans of action. A video feature of sorts should be up at some point – when I get around to it. Like I said leave the lights on.
TAG: wemedia
tags: No commentsThanks Chad
I shut down our wrap-up party for a few minutes to thank a few of the many, many people who helped us hold the forum. My brain was beyond dead and I forgot to thank. Chad Capellman. Chad produced and ran this web site for us. Chad used to be on our staff. He moved to Boston a few months ago, where he’s now working for a startup. Thank you Chad.
WE MEDIA : Calls to action
The two day WE MEDIA crush conference raised many issues, with some room for questions by the floor. WM Fellows were invited on May 2nd (the day before the WM Global Forum started) to brainstorm during an hour on some 15 major issues. WE MEDIA Director Andrew Nachison collected the answers for a tentative call to action, the wikied draft of which can be read here. The Forum’s last panel was pulled to address the same-titled concluding panel : Call to Action / The We Media Global Initiative, with the following members
- Jeff Belk (Qualcomm)
- Graeme Ferguson (Vodafone)
- Scott Heiferman (Meetup)
- Katherine von Jan (Infinia)
with William C. Weiss and Andrew Nachison as moderators
- Jeff Belk commented on how content and technology were wrapped together in the conference, and how technology is going to change in the next 5 or 10 years. Also, the bottum-uo and top-down issues are an US- anglo-centric issue, as he has witnessed things in developpimg countries done in ways that cannot be done in western countries. Mobile telephone was also very much used during the Forum, specially by those participants who didn’t use a laptop.
- Katherine von Jan is a cultural strategist ; her company, Infinia, looks into comsumer insights to elicit comsumer patterns in the next 10-15 years. She feels that consumers were absent from the conversation, specially that as they are now digitally linked, they can follow their inner drives and adjust their purchasing power to their likings. They do not go for marketted products imposed on them. As a consumer herself, she wants to listen and understand consumers first.
- Scott Heiferman from Meetup emphasizes on how people interested in less-publicized subjects meet thanks to Internet. When people have the power to unite and stand up for themselves, they do so, and MeetUp proves it. Meet Up went from free to fees, because their structure has to be paid for. That change first led to distrust whereby they lost half their traffic, but Scott Heiferman says Meet Up now has more people meeting up than ever before.
- Graeme Ferguson from Vodafone says that paying downloads are rising, in part because the price is low
questions answers questions from the floor :
- Katherine von Jan ; community can build on brand names, there is an opportunity for media companies to adapt and surf on a healthy brand. Companies have to be partners, co-create and not just sponsor.
- floor comment : the “WE” of WE MEDIA was not heard much
- Scott Heiferman (Meetup) : is it WE public or WE companies ?
Andrew Nachison invites the floor to pronounce itself on what can be done to build trust, based on the afore-mentionned draft.
- Suw Charman : the best thing to foster trust is to listen to people with experience : bloggers in the first place, because they know what they are talking about.
TAG: wemedia
tags: No commentsWho’s going to pay for media?
The audience is straying from traditional media and citizen journalism, mostly done pro bono is proliferating. So where is the money going to come from to maintain huge news organizations and how will those that do media from their heart be paid?
Stephanie Flanders of the BBC led the Business Forum, discussing this issue with Rafat Ali (paidContent), Sebastian Grigg (Goldman Sachs), Carolyn McCall (Guardian), Shoba Purushothaman (TheNewsMarket), Dave Sifry (Technorati) and Chris Ahearn (Reuters Media). Below are the main points of their discussion.
- We need to stop talking about “the business model.” There will be multiple models that will work (McCall).
- Media organizations have to be agnostic about the medium. McCall used the example of the Guardian. If it still exists and is influential in 10 years but is no longer a newspaper in the traditional sense, the paper will have won.
- Anyone who creates content should be paid. Now, with current media business models, paying Citizen Journalists doesn’t make sense. But those models will arise eventually so embrace them now and prepare yourselves.
- We will always need the established media we can trust and with the plethora of information, trust becomes key.
- Editors become more important in sifting through the information for their audience; the editor/audience relationship will also be based on trust.
- You need to be big or you need to get specific (Ahearn). The middle will die.
- Old media are venerable franchises. But we have no idea where they are going. Investors are wary. The idea of brand is changing. It depends on the trust you create with your audience.
- There is a huge shift of power to the consumers who are also becoming creators. In ten years we may look back and say “Why did we call ourselves consumers?” Consumers are passive. And we can no longer describe the public as passive. (Sifry)
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
The possibility of global reach in specific subjects, i.e., butterflies, birds, creators of new social interactions et. al., is one of the strengths of the new order. Especially for people living in the less treaded Southern Hemisphere. So much to do in cross Equator exchange!
So … pretty vacuuous then.
Didn’t any actual ideas or deep understanding come out of this discussion?
The problem with newspapers isn’t the supposed threat from citizen journalism efforts–the problem is loss of revenue from advertising. When the S.F. Chronicle’s circulation drops 15%, and citizen journalism efforts have had mixed results, it’s pretty easy to see that there’s more to the loss of revenue than cit. j. (Dan Gilmor recently wrote about loss of revenue, and where it was coming from, for the BBC.)
Sifry is right about people creating–but what exactly is it that people are creating? Dave should know from a survey of the Magic Middle that what people are creating is conversation about the news. If that’s what journalists want to call citizen journalism, then perhaps they’re over-estimating what it is for alot of people and under-estimating what it is for people doing solid cit. j. efforts.
If paper’s are losing revenue, they’d be better off looking at who’s taking their ad revenue, look at the popularity of their on-line offerings, and take it from there. Don’t blame citizen journalism and “the people” other more serious factors.
The question assumes that someone has to pay for media.
Information ‘wants’ to be free.
There are those who will say there is no such thing as a free lunch. There are those who will say that you get what you pay for.
I haven’t paid for news journalism for 10 years. The news I have heard/read was:
– in libraries;
– free at the point of distribution (e.g. Metro)
– Taxpayer paid (e.g. BBC);
– loaned or given (e.g. paper on train, or friend wanted my view so gave me a copy); and
– Net.
With time-shifting and concentration I have avoided 95% of advertising.
By far the most interesting, informative, and engaging journalism is Net – particularly bloggers. They pay to tell me what they know, and why. There is a marginal cost to me to receive Net journalism. I need a PC to post my tax return, make a medical appointment, write to my MP, pay my bills, etc., etc., etc. – so my PC and broadband are paid for. News and information is a bonus.
Participatory Media [or: Chip-In Media (CHIM)] does not require a business model – QED.
We The World: Africa
Moderated by Rachel Rawlins (Global Voices), with Ory Okolloh (Reuters) via Satellite from Johannesburg, South Africa, Mathew Buckland (Mail & Guardian), Wilfred Kiboro (Nation Media Group), WM Fellows, Megan Knight, Middlesex University
Running about 30 minutes behind schedule, the Africa portion of the We The World series, began as individuals marched back in from the short break.
After Jeffery Sachs spoke on eliminating global poverty, it seemed very appropriate to discuss Africa.
Wilfred Kiboro spoke first after seeing images of Africa on the screen. He said he’s angry. “”Shame on Reuters”" for sharing images of Africa that reinforce stereotypes. He says that Sachs continues to stereotype as well. It isn’t one country, Kiboro says. “”I don’t know the Kenya he was describing,”" referring to Sachs. It takes 8 hours to fly from top to bottom. There are so many ethnic communities in different countries. African countries aren’t like European. MSM does a great disservice to Africa. Media is alive and well in Africa. “”We are not in the stone age.”"
Rachel then asked the rest of the panel to introduce themselves.
Ory Okolloh is a Kenyan blogger in English and Swahili. She started blogging at Harvard while in Law School. She got involved in Global Voices as well. Her stories and others in Africa didn’t feel that their stories were being told locally or internationally. Rather than complain about the lack of coverage, cover it yourself! “”You tell them the real story.”" She is now focusing on “”citizen journalism”" even beyond hard news. She cites photos from flickr which covers many aspects of African life. She also spoke of the Kenyan blogosphere covering a recent corruption story.
Matthew Buckand, the publisher of the Mail and Guardian Online edition. This is a profitable website from online advertising. He also blogs. He also says that Africa is complicated. Northern, Central and Southern Africa are so different from each other. He also says that looking at positive stories is almost never done by MSM. The second privately funded trip into space was in South Africa! It isn’t all doom and gloom. His newspaper has a citizen journalism site. He also mentions Media24, an interactive TV channel. He is in conflict about citizen journalism. There is a problem with connectivity. 1/160 people have access. If no access to the internet exists, why talk about citizen journalism? But on the other hand, citizen journalism is perfect for Africa. Mobile phone penetration is important. It leapfrogged straight to GSM. Entrepreneurs have an opportunity to use moblogging.
Megan Knight also discussed mobile phone penetration. She believes that South Africa will build its own kind of technology based on what it uses. She has no doubt that Africa will invest something itself rather than wait around for someone to bring technology to them. She also sees citizen journalism as coming from a longer rebellious activism in Africa. Radio, for example, is still the most important technology in Africa. MDLF came out of radio. Why not pirate or community radio in Africa? She wants to utilize regular radio, rather than internet, to enable new community activity.
Kimboro discussed that satellite and other technologies are coming in. His site is extremely popular. Trying to balance commercial interests with reader interests.
Fred from Zambia spoke next. Fred has been at the Post Newspaper for over 15 years. He came into journalism from a political background. He was involved with a political party. His newspaper was the second online in Africa. Rachel mentioned that many people consider Zambia to be a “”basketcase,”" so this is impressive.
Okolloh mentioned that all African newspapers must be online. They need the diaspora and to reach others. Even though not a lot of people are blogging, a lot of the blogging posts are circulated via SMS or e-mail. They’re also looking to get blogs printed. There are people that want to hear the bloggers’ voices but can’t reach them. Young people can’t get published in the African MSM but can get published on blogs.
Rachel asked why the Mail and Guardian had political bloggers. Buckland said that they asked all the party leaders to blog the local elections. He said that it was really exciting even in stories about forgetting to brush one’s teeth. They didn’t want to include comments because they were afraid that politicians would be attacked. http://electionblogs.mg.co.za/ They also let users blog on their own Mail and Guardian sites.
Rachel asked about Zambia in contrast to Kenya and South Africa. Fred said he took the newspaper online because of the impact that a newspaper can have on poverty. The problems are so big. There is a legacy of problems. Since the slave trade, Africa has had involvement in the free market. Now they are still trying to go into the free market. Zambia and Maylasia were at the same economic level 25 years ago. Look at Malaysia now! Rachel asked friend who he wants to consume his news. Fred said that he wants to produce for humanity.
Rebecca brought up from the chat room that people liked Kiboro’s words then asked why connectivity is more important than basic needs like clean water? Okolloh said not to take money away from other problems, rather try to achieve a number of things at the same time. She says that it is crap to “”wait for internet access while we’re dying.”" She is tired of these arguments. “”This is a global information world.”" They are not mutually extensive.
Buckland agreed with Okolloh. He says that the Rwandan Genocide wouldn’t have happened with the internet. If there was an information flow through Africa, politicians wouldn’t allow these things to happen.
Knight said in Zimbabwe that things could be worse. Not everyone needs to read the blog – just one person to read it and can pass messages on.
Kiboro says that connectivity will happen in Africa but it is about business rather than development. Newspapers are limited to pages. The internet can go on indefinitely. “”There is so much to be said about Africa,”" that is why there is a blogging explosion. Africa can leap technologies easily.
David from viewmagazine.tv, a vcast, discussed a project in Ghana taking journalists from South Africa. He says there are easy ways for people to get involved in Africa with affordable equipment. MSM could put these sort of things on television. Supply the funding and equipment and make someone a video journalist!
Rachel told Kiboro to do it. He said “”money’s not our problem.”" People with training are the real problem.
Put what Sachs said into a context. Western media “”never puts anything in a context.”"
WeJay Jeff Jarvis was delighted to hear people say that it doesn’t take everyone to be online to get the value of technology. How it is spread and tied into other things is important too. Flexibility is key! Take advantage of opportunities.
A question from the audience emerged from a gentleman from USC. He told a story about how going on the internet was a political move for students.
A question from Michaela, a filmmaker, who asked about entertainment in Africa. Kiboro said that people are involved in some film productions, people engage in online chats.
What’s the best way that outsiders can help correct the stereotypes that the MSM perpetuates about Africa?
Ore said that technology facilitated newspapers online. She mentioned that in Kenya a site for subscribers with alternative media clips. The bandwidth issues are a big problem.
From the chat room: “”Well, people have chosen _one_ of the sessions to miss, and clearly this was it.”"
TAG: wemedia ”
Previous Comments
Running about 30 minutes behind schedule, the Africa portion of the We The World series, began as individuals marched back in from the short break.
The comment on being 30 mins behind schedule is completely useless information without putting it in context of the schedule delays.
The beauty of the news
Today’s We Media Global conference is taking place at the very fancy Reuters Global headquarters at Canary Wharf. Yesterday we met at the BBC, at a different style of building altogether (someone actually compared it to a run down hospital). But both buildings shared something very obvious: these are news organisations.
At Reuters, visitors are greeted by a huge outdoor screen with the latest stories and pictures, inside there are large screens as well as pictures everywhere. In the BBC reception area, there were screens with a video loop on all the great news stories the organisation has covered.
Not that surprising of course, but nevertheless my mind keeps searching for an adequate description of the effects of this abundant news display. While I was waiting at the BBC I saw the Twin Towers exploding over and over again. And drinking coffee at Reuters today, the Kuwaiti oil fields are burning behind the coffee table.
Yes, this what the news looks like. (Especially at Reuters, news looks really wonderful, actually). But somehow, using such material to promote the quality of reporting (BCC) or to decorate the beautiful conference area (Reuters) generates a feeling of unease as well. The news is too good looking.
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
Stop confusing news with entertainment.
News is information. Information ‘wants’ to be free. A free people require access to information as a right. When free people acquire information they make democracy work.
A free people also want entertainment. They are free, so they choose to pay for it, or not.
Media messages that are ‘packaged’ fail because it is clear that they aim to influence, not to inform or educate. Thus: Modern ‘professional’ media is failing. The people see through the package. The people seek information elsewhere. End of old media.
A global call to action
Jeffery Sachs joined the Forum via satellite from Columbia University in New York to talk about poverty and famine in other parts of the world and how the interconnected world can help those plights. The media is crucial in making the West understand this interconnectivity, how a tragedy in one part of the world affects the whole world. With this understanding, the West would be more willing to help.
Second, the media needs to help people find solutions to these problems in developing regions. The spirit and ingenuity are there, but these people still lack the resources to produce the basic necessities of life. We also need to connect these people to the world by helping them build the necessary infrastructure.
One start is the cell phone. This technology has helped connect people in imaginable ways and will continue to do so.
One comment had to do with the generalities in which we in the West speak. Africa is not one homogenous culture but we tend to treat it that way. And who is this “we” that is always mentioned when referring to the West. Who is it actually that’s going to help?
Sachs responded by saying that he has been all over Africa and he finds hunger everywhere. Lumping all of the cultures and countries under the general term Africa is thus not degrading, it merely simplifies our conversation.
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
Calls to action for human relief for Africa (say Ethiopia, the Soudan, Uganda and the like) have been made at one time or another in past years and decades. Commendable as it may be, just how is this going to help more ?
Genocide Indeed.
by Sogol Assadbeigi
The Arab Janjaweed militias recruited from local Arab tribes, backed by the Government of Sudan, have bombed and killed the black, Muslim non- Arab population of Darfurians. The Sudanese government while publicly denying its support to the Janjaweed militias has joined forces and arms in the atrocities, destroying their crops and poisoned their water supplies. Now they’re preventing life-saving food and medicine from reaching them. Over two million people have been driven from their homes and face hunger and disease while the remaining are beaten, raped and terrorized. Since the strife started in 2003 one thousand people are dying every day and over 400,000 have been estimated dead already and the death poll may reach an excruciating 1 million.
Over 130 countries, including the US, Canada, the UK and most other EU countries have signed an International Convention committing them to act to prevent genocide anywhere in the world. Thus many governments are not identifying genocide in Darfur and refute all claims.
In 2004, the U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell travelled to the devastating refugee camps in Western Darfur and found that the government is evidently and directly involved in committing the genocide. In addition to the Bus Administration, many others, such as Senator John Kerry also denounced it as a genocide.
Time is precious more than ever now. In a matter of months an entire generation of people is about to be whipped off of the face of the planet through starvation, disease and murder and all we are left with is a devastating memory. Together we must urge our government leaders to take the necessary actions to stop genocide and build an independent judiciary in Darfur.
Citizen wotsitsname – that film (wemedia)
Everyone knows the film, even if they can’t remember the talented director. The film has become part of our visual landscape and set a standard for those who would follow.
And the film was. . . the one that showed the beating of Rodney King, the film showing the botched landing of a plane on the sea off the coast of East Africa, images from London’s tube, from 911, Hurricane Katrina and there are countless many more.
These were films made by Citizen Joe and Josephine. Citizen Journalism has been here as long as we’ve told stories. In the late 1600s leading to 1700s in the UK, story telling turned professional. Addison and Steele, famed for Tatler and the Spectator, both of whom had different professions, could loosely count as early flag bearers of a name that today is a red flag to many.
So citizen journos are not a new phenomenon, but like an army has been professionalised. And on the theme of the army, we might count it’s citizen contributors as members of the Territorial Army – citizens who have their day job, but enlist all the same. No one gets heated about that. Oh, I’m being naive.
It’s not whether we embrace CJ or not. It’s here, has been here, and ain’t going anywhere. In fact the digital economy will ensure CJs increase in number. Some organisations have welcomed blogs, but that’s just one facet of the digital journalist.
There is more we could do, much much more. Not because we’re compelled to, but because we’re interested and need to facilitate greater understanding, education, entertainment and participation amongst ourselves. CJ adds to that. Listen to the CJ podcast and to panelist Rachel North – one of the survivors of July 7th bombing.
So to my one contribution – a perhaps nonsensical idea. Emily Bell ( Guardian ) said this morning, most of the UK’s TV talent is in reality TV. So the programme is this. Broadcasters who claim to have the CJ firmly in site should set up a CJ model news made by guess who to compete with their own bulletins.
The broadcasters facilitate the making of the programme offering support but the editorial comes from we the people. If YouTube and Metacafe are anything to go by, it should make an interesting programme. It may even have a shelf life on broadband.
The best film ever, Citzen Kane? Or was that made by you.
p.s I’ll blog my thoughts on what I thought of the Citizen Journalist debate , as one of the panelists later
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
I don’t get it.
Why do we need broadcasters – we have the Net.
Being patronising towards those journalists who are new to journalism doesn’t sound like a recipe for success to me.
Forward thinking it is. Trust in stories will be in the hands of the public. Journalist will have a role as a moderator of UGC first. That is the best they can do to anticipate on what will definitely happen anyway.
Day One audio of Richard Dreyfuss, Digital Assassins and the Citizen Journalism Forum session
Media and Civic Discourse With Richard Dreyfuss, Actor and Activist
Download MP3
Citizen Journalism Forum | Who’s Making the News?
A conversation moderated by Paul Holmes (Reuters), with Helen Boaden (BBC), George Brock (The Times), David Gyimah (Video Journalist), Andrew Hawken (MSN.com), Salam Pax (talkleft.com, via satellite)
Part 1 | Part 2
Meet the Digital Assassins – Moderated by Spencer Kelly (BBC)
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Previous Comments
Hi, I’d love to hear the forum on citizen journalism, only none of the links are valid. Any hints on where I can find the mp3s?
9th of May, and still no MP3s, Bill.
Could it be that the absence of medium is the message?
–
Chris
The mp3s are up and ready in our archives. The links here should be fixed very shortly.
The CD is not dead (yet) because MP3 is not CD quality. The CD is not dead (yet) because some people have still to learn how to download. The CD is not dead (yet) because ther is not (yet) Bluetooth in the MP3 player.
Talking about the death, or not, of the CD is wrong-headed on two points:
– The CD is a medium, all mediums are replaced (e.g. telegraph, vinyl);
– Its not about the medium – it’s about the messages.
Talking about “viral marketing” misses the point. Citizen Journalism [a.k.a. Cip-In Media (CHIME)] does not use marketing, it uses reputation – the ultimate measure of trust.
Parts 2 & 3 – meeting the ‘Assassins’ … how embarassing was that… Are there really that many people in Big Media who don’t have a clue?
It would be a shame if bloggers — individually, or collectively — wanted to preserve the ‘divide’ in order to sustain their status as outsiders (or whatever might motivate them). There is so much opportunity for Big Media to learn from those who practice social media, and vice versa.