Archive for the 'WeMedia 2006' Category
We the World
While in Southern Africa there is a contrast of Zimbabwe with an arguably “non free” press and South Africa with an arguably “free” press, both countries have similar problems with accessibility isssues for the communities. These issues relate to basic infrastructure issues, such as access to the hardware for blogging, which illustrate the digital divide between developed and developing worlds.
What can new media do to enable to digital have nots, such that they are inlcuded from the beginning of the new wave rather than being left behind.
Middle East media in major flux
Satellite television has been the primary driver or catalyst of the changes going on in the Arab media sphere, says the session’s moderator — Keith Porter from the Stanley Foundation. Porter positions panArab news channels like Jazeera and Arabiya as the spearheaders of this move towards a much more aware and accountable media regionwide,
Satellite television has been the primary driver or catalyst of the changes going on in the Arab media sphere, says the session’s moderator — Keith Porter from the Stanley Foundation. Porter positions panArab news channels like Jazeera and Arabiya as the spearheaders of this move towards a much more aware and accountable media regionwide,
Rami Khouri — editor at large of the Lebanese Daily Star newspaper — continues this conversational thread by arguing that Arabia and Jazeera are more balanced than any US organization in the way they present more than one point of view on issues like the war in Iraq, for instance. Khouri is so sure of this that he says he is willing to bet a double felafel (or roast beef if thats your fancy) on this point.
Khouri clarifies what he calls an important misconception — that its not that the media that is deliberately inciting anti american sentiment in the region, because this media is just a true mirror of that sentiment among a significant portion of the public. He also denies that Jazeera is a mouthpiece of al Qaeda.
300 million people in 23 countries can absorb even more serious news channels, says Salah Negm, who is working on a new project to establish a BBC Arabic TV channel.
Meanwhile, via a live satellite feed from Iraq, Zuheir Al-Jazeiry of Awsat al-Iraq talks about how the sudden boom in media outlets there may have confounded people at first, but with time the public began to clearly identify the leanings of each organization based on their editorial line.
Jihad Ballout of Al-Arabia argues that the emergence of more channels has also helped improve the work habits of Arab journalists, since healthy competition — which did not really exist in the region previously — tends to do that.
Michael Craig of the Stanley Foundation sees the new media landcape as a reflection of an emerging rebirth of Arab nationalism, which many had already declared dead.
The discussion then moves in the direction of whether or not this newfound and active information society will actually result in more political participation, more audience participation, more interaction between media and society, etc. Too many subjects, not enough time… In any case, the answers may still not be there, but what is clear is that the region’s media landscape will never be the same.
TAG: wemedia
tags: No commentsHow should the media affect our world?
This post was contributed by Kookie Habtegaber of MediaChannel
The media has the most impact and attention in the North, where life is more or less impossible without telecommunication and digital connection. Since the population of this part of the world also has a monopoly on the world’s riches and resources one way or another, its media should use their position to create a constructive dialogue between different parts of the world. It should make the “masses aware” of how their action/lifestyle impacts the life of those across the globe, specifically those in the South. Here, I am not referring to churning out bad news after bad news; a war here, a disaster there, often without giving an in-depth analysis of the situation, but to showing the link, create awareness, and inform the public about issues that affect millions of lives on the bases of our interconnectedness.
Thus, it is not just about presenting the fact, but also the interpretation of the fact. For instance, how many news agencies who reported on the war in Congo also added the list of multinationals that concurrently operate in that same country extracting minerals? True, most people including myself can not do without our mobile phone these days, but if there would be a survey on whether people are willing to pay extra so that they know the coltan on their mobile phone connecting them to their loved ones is not at the same time depriving others the same opportunity across the globe, I am sure most people would be willing to accommodate; after all what is the point of believing in progress without the belief in the good will of people.
Media outlets of course get their funding from advertising, governments, and often are owned by private shareholders who have their own agenda and want a guarantee on their profit margin. Boards of directors, individual programmers, editors, commissions etc, all have an influence on how things are presented and on emphasis given to certain issues. The way one processes information, one’s personal belief, even at a subconscious level, leads to some level of subjectivity. As Nietzsche contended, no pure fact without interpretation could exist.
Yet many media outlets and journalists alike, claim to tell the truth and continue their rhetoric of objectivism and impartiality. If we take the case of public media, who are less likely to be biased, it should be acknowledged that at times the interest of the “country” will censor certain news analysis or affect the way it is presented. For example, the BBC is re-knowned for its accurate, impartial, objective and exhaustive reporting. Yet, should I have been critical of the BBC world radio (the only news outlet I had to get news at that time) for broadcasting hours after hours about the invasion of Iraq and the weapons used as if it was some kind of science fiction episode? Or does the BBC have an allegiance to British involvement, to protect the interest of Britain? Is the BBC’s mandate first and foremost to serve the British people and its government? After all, it is the British tax payer who is paying for it. The answer is to the latter is probably yes. Otherwise there would not be national media outlets in the first place. In reality, media outlets often will not cover all stories with the same vigor; some issues are more important than others, commercial interest lead to self-censorship and so forth. Therefore what is essential is that the directive and priorities of media outlets should be clear and honest even if this means acknowledging vested interests.
This is even more significant since globalization of the media and new sorts of communications has made information imperative and moved the role of the media to the center stage, influencing all aspects social life. Hence, why not use this leverage and try to make it the media’s (especially the public media) responsibility and duty to inform us and create awareness about how connected we really are. For instance, by putting the link between `why are we wealthy and they still poor¬¥, between political and economic decisions, by promoting discussions about consumerism and its impact on environmental degradation and persisting poverty. But, by also reporting about positive activities that are happening around the world; creating impetus for people to participate and get involved for advancing a better and just world.
This of course carries a bias towards a certain view of the world, promotes some issues more than others, but it is my opinion it should not be seen as undesirable. Once we have acknowledged that the media is not objective and will not cover all issues with the same weight and depth, perhaps then the media can play a constructive role towards a more even world. It can play a role in balancing the good and evil, it can help tip the balance towards the good for all. It might be in human nature to be selfish, but it is also in human nature to show solidarity. If this part of the world was to change places with the deprived part, perhaps the reactions would have been the same; sometimes indifferent and self-interest, and at times amity and involvement.
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
Great site…
We don’t always realize how much power the media has. The media, is the the power in the world. I am part of a grass-roots effort to make real change using blogs and it is working. It is growing very quickly, faster than I ever imagined and it is all viral.
We are calling it the Million Person March
Media are the guardians of a public trust – we place our trust in media to give us the facts. It is from this public trust that they get the title of Fourth Estate, alongside politicians, and churchmen.
However, like all such trusts, it is based on the assumption of a limited commons. Only so many can afford the printing presses, studios and masts, or disc presses.
The Net is different. Already, poor communities are finding ways of using shared computer and fast wireless acess to publish. There is no post 1970 superstar photographer to match the sixties ones like Lord Lichfield, or David Bailey – we are all photographers now. Now that we all have mobiles with digital cameras in them, we are all news photographers too.
Even if Nietzsche’s contention, no pure fact without interpretation, is correct the best solution is to hear as many reports (a.k.a. opinions) as possible.
You might think that Big Media is not helping itself by being so obviously contemptuous of their public responsibility – their public trust. I, for one, wouldn’t argue with you.
Don’t ask where 40 million blogs came from – and counting [ www.technorati.com ] people want to chip in. Don’t you?
The Internet and China
Co-founder of Global Voices Rebecca MacKinnon led a discussion about how technology is affecting Chinese society with rapporteur Rachel Rawlins (Global Voices), and Jean-Marc Coicaud (UNU), Rudy Chan (China.com), David Schlesinger (Reuters), Michael Tong (NetEase.com) and Marcus Xiang (PDX.CN). Although Westerners originally thought freedom of expression and information on the Internet would bring down the Communist Party, the powers in Beijing have become adept at searching out and striking down the information they deem dangerous.
The Internet only reaches about 8% of the Chinese population and this 8% is fairly homogenous; a “thin layer” of educated urban elites. The CPC doesn’t necessarily feel threatened either. Most people stay away from political talk on their blogs, discussing everyday topics like movies, music and their daily lives.
What’s more, there is no organized group of Chinese political bloggers. Dissidents are individuals; this is what the West hears most about.
The Internet may only be at 8% penetration, but mobile phones are a powerful force, reaching up to 4 times as many people. The appeal of mobile phones is portability. But despite 3G technology, the design of mobile phones is not very conducive to Web surfing. Xiang figures that because of this factor, computers will become more popular for surfing the Web.
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
A definite highlight of the conference. I think this reaffirms the notion that those inside a particular country may have differing ideas on what needs to be talked about may be different than what the west may want to talk about. It shouldn’t be an either/or practice, but also listen to the other voices out there.
I really do not follow China much, but Andrew Lih’s comments about China’s history and the work with Wikipedia were such a needed and valuable contribution. It also provided much more depth to the regular stories that I may read about China.
Tom Glocer, CEO of Reuters: Where Does Trust Fit In?
Tom Glocer, CEO of Reuters talks during the session “Big Idea 4: The Democratization of Media – Where does trust fit in?” at Day 2 of the We Media Global Forum. Photo by Paul Hackett, Reuters
Highlights from Tom’s talk:
The growth of participatory media is in inverse proportion to citizens’ participation in democracy. There has been a huge drop in the percentage of people who take the time to vote in elections; in the USA the voting percentage was 69% n 1975; today it is 55%. So why are voting numbers declining in the western democracies?
It’s not because people are apathetic. Maybe it’s because people feel that their voices are not being heard by politicians through voting; blogging is their way of making their voices heard. Of participating. That has some pretty scary implications for the future of democracy.
Some of those themes came up in the trust poll the BBC did before the conference. Trust in media inthe developing world is highest; but in the UK, US and Germany, the population sample trusts government more than the media.
In other words, people of the western media do not seem to feel that they are part of the democratic process.
With so many sources out there, and such a vibrant dialogue going on, who do you trust? What is the role of the more traditional media companies? Used an example of a photo sent in by a citizen, purportedly of deer in front of a forest fire in Dorset. The Reuters staff were able to fact check carefully, and concluded that the photo came from Cass Sunstein’s bok “Laws of Fear.” Photo was taken in Yellowstone, and “deer” are elk. Point is, Reuters has money and staff to do careful fact checking, but who fact checks bloggers?
On the other hand, it can’t be true that only professional journalism is the answer. Participatory journalism can be amazing – great content. The important thing is to find a balance between participatory and professional journalism. For example, citizen journalists can send us photos and we can fact check them.
It’s up to all of us to strike a balance between incorporating outside content an dcreating inside content to get our own message across and encourage people to contribute because they appreciate our values. We do not want to give the message that we have a monopoly on truth. It’s not an “either-or” choice. It’s a complex choice.
Our interaction with GVO is about how to bring GVO into the Reuters environment and make it richer for everyone.
My observation: Tom seems to be participating a complementary view of MSM and citizen journalists/bloggers. Let Reuters report the facts, and let the bloggers debate the issues raised in the Reuters report and add nuance. This is actually a much more conciliatory MSM approach than that which was on display during the first day of the conference.
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
this is really about a later session but nowhere to link to yet.
Re OhmyNews. there is a proposal for a version in Japan, working with Softbank
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=314174&no=277280&rel_no=1
I don’t trust that the media gets the whole story.
When Kerry testified in 1986 that he was illegally spending Christmas in Cambodia (in 1968), the media did NOT report this as false — nor that there are no records to support this claim.
Kerry got 3 purple hearts — how many days did he spend in the hospital? (0, I think).
Dan Rather’s on-screen lie, and near cover-up.
On the other hand, most of what I think I know about the world DOES come from the media, so it is extremely helpful, even when I don’t fully trust it.
Intriguing point about the decline in voting and the rise of blogging. Many people must be asking why should they vote for one sleazy politician instead of another sleazy politician. Most people I speak to say politicians are all the same . In the game to line their own pockets. Right or wrong that’s the perception. A blogger can say what they want and if they are clever listen to the feedback that they get. Mainstream blogs don’t really work because they have corporate agendas. Nobody pays me for what I write. As for the facts if I blog a protest I make sure someone I know and trust was there. I don’t make it up!
What happened to Al Jazeera as part of the Middle East session? Shown in advance as there, but not so. There was a question and the suggestion of bias but nobody from al Jazeera to answer
Tom needs to get a clue. It’s not about ‘reporting’ it’s about a conversation.
Meeting a blogger on the Net, or reading a newspaper columnist, for the first time is no different from meeting a stranger in the pub. After an hour or so you start to get a feeling for how much this guy’s stories are fact, fiction, opinionated, offer valuable insight, give alternative interpretations, checked, intelligent, thoughtful, amusing, plugged in, etc..
Reuters trade on their reputation. Bloggers are no different – 100%. Professional journalists (i.e. they are paid to do it – this is the the only distinction) are only very rarely experts on what they report (i.e. by accident). Bloggers are nearly always experts (i.e. by design) on what they blog. Professionals who blog are easy to find – a step up from bumping into people in bars.
Reputations are earned over lifetimes, and lost in seconds. Bloggers who have been around a while understand this.
Reputation: Trust earned over time, by experience. See that? No ‘professionalism’ required. No ‘resources’ required. The name is the brand – a brand is a name – no more, no less.
News is fact. Facts are subjective – they demand interpretation. Citizens are always on the spot. There will always be more citizens than professional journalists, because the journalists are all citizens and the citizens are now all journalists. Only a few are paid to do it – many are prepared to do it to free the information.
Love writing, love recording, love filming, love reporting? Chime with me – Chip-In to Media, on the Net.
Geert Linnebank welcomes the We Media Global Forum to Reuters
Head of global news at Reuters, Geert Linnebank welcomed the delegates to the new worldwide headquarters of the world’s largest information company.
He said that new content publishing capabilities are the latest challenge to established news organizations. Reuters has always used the latest technology available to distribute the news. Linnebank said that technology at the end of the day is just an enabler, a means of getting the message to the audience.
Journalists need to redefine their relationship with the world. The megaphone model of communication is being replaced, which represents a real challenge to the traditional roles of mass media.
We will need editors to lead the discussion between traditional and new content creators. We can’t forget the values they’ve upheld forever; balance, fairness and accuracy.
There is great news for us journalists – new media is already leading to a much richer telling of the story. Now is not the time to stand on the side and see what happens. The market is evolving and we have to help it.
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
“We will need editors to lead the discussion between traditional and new content creators – to discuss what? Traditional journalists have nothing to teach bloggers. If they did, they would be blogging. If they did, they would be the biggest names on the Net. If they did, blogs would never have stood alone and would never have become mainstream alongside Old Media. If they did bloggers would be beating a path to Old Media’s door…
We can’t forget the values they’ve upheld forever; balance, fairness and accuracy That may be true of Reuters and the BBC but, to many of us, there are too many examples of the opposite. There are those who say; Old Media is dead, shed no tears for Old Media, it goes to a better place. Whether history will agree is entirely another question.
WeMedia 2006 Participants
Tom Glocer, CEO, Reuters
Mark Thompson, Director-General, BBC
Jeffry Sachs, Director, The Earth Institute (via satellite from New York)
Nitin Desai, Special Assistant to the Secretary-General of the United Nations
Richard Dreyfuss, Actor and Activist
Wadah Khanfar, Director-General, Al Jazeera Network Channel
Carolyn McCall, CEO, Guardian Newspapers
Richard Sambrook, Director of Global News, BBC
Dave Sifry, CEO, Technorati
Nikesh Arora, Vice President of European Operations, Google
Scott Heiferman, Founder & CEO, Meetup.com
Chris Ahearn, President, Reuters Media
Rafat Ali, Editor & Publisher, paidContent.org
Nihal Arthanayake, DJ & Music Journalist
Ros Atkins, Presenter, World Have Your Say, BBC
Timothy Balding, CEO, World Association of Newspapers
Jihad Ballout, Director of Corporate Communications, Al Arabiya
Angela Beesley, Board Member, Wikimedia Foundation
Emily Bell, Editor-in-Chief, Guardian Unlimited
Jeff Belk, Senior Vice President, Qualcomm
Kamla Bhatt, The Kamla Bhatt Show
David Brain, European President & CEO, Edelman
Helen Boaden, Director of News and Current Affairs, BBC
George Brock, Saturday Editor, The Times of London
Merrill Brown, Founder & Principal, MMB Media LLC; Media Center Advisory Board
Matthew Buckland, Publisher, Mail & Guardian Online, South Africa
Rudy Chan, ex-CEO, China.com
Jean-Marc Coicaud, New York Head, United Nations University
Adam Curry, Podcaster, Curry.com
Nitin Desai, Special Assistant to the UN Secretary-General
Richard Dreyfuss , Actor and Activist
Graeme Ferguson, Director of Global Content, Vodafone
Stephanie Flanders, Economics Editor, BBC Newsnight
Dan Gillmor, Author, We The Media
Nik Gowing, Presenter, BBC World
Sebastian Grigg, Partner & Managing Director, Goldman Sachs
David Dunkley-Gyimah, Video Journalist/ Senior Academic
Andrew Hawken, General Manager, MSN Portal Experience
Paul Holmes, Global Editor for Political and General News, Reuters
Dr. Paul Jacobs, CEO, Qualcomm
Jeff Jarvis, Blogger, Buzzmachine.com
Spencer Kelly, Presenter, BBC Click
Rhami Khouri, Editor-at-Large, Lebanon Daily Star
Wilfred Kiboro, CEO, Nation Media Group, Kenya
Megan Knight, Middlesex University
Dr. Michael Kraig, Director of Policy Analysis & Dialogue, Stanley Foundation
Geert Linnebank, Editor-in-Chief & Global Head of Content, Reuters
Sunil Lulla, CEO, Times Global Broadcasting Co. Ltd., India
Rebecca MacKinnon, Co-Founder, Global Voices
Carolyn McCall, CEO, Guardian Newspapers
Andrew Nachison, Director, The Media Center
Salah Negm, News Editor, BBC Arabic TV Service
Rachel North, blogger, Rachel from North London
Rabiya Parekh, Presenter, World Have Your Say, BBC
Bertrand Pecquerie, Director, World Editors Forum
Dale Peskin, Co-Director, The Media Center
Keith Porter, Director of Communications & Outreach, Stanley Foundation
Shoba Purushothaman, CEO, The NewsMarket
Scott Rafer, Chairman, Wireless Ink
Rachel Rawlins, Managing Editor, Global Voices
Richard Sambrook, Director of Global News, BBC
Mark Sandell, Editor, World Have Your Say, BBC
David Schlesinger, Global Managing Editor, Reuters
Karen Stephenson, President, Netform; Media Center Advisory Board
Neha Viswanathan, South Asia Editor, Global Voices
Katherine von Jan, Co-CEO, Infinia Group
Marcus Xiang, CEO, PDX.CN, China
William C. Weiss, Chairman & CEO, The Promar Group; Media Center Advisory Board
Dean Wright, SVP & Managing Editor of Consumer Services, Reuters
Online Curators:
Brian Reich, Senior Strategic Consultant, Mindshare Interactive Campaigns
Suw Charman, Executive Director, Open Rights Group
Vanessa Fabiano, Editor, Shortcut: A European City Blog
Thousands of comments reviewed by 4 moderators
The BBC website is a main news source for many people around the world. The site actively invited visitors to discuss items in the news, in the section Have your say. See also this page where the BBC asks visitors for their ideas, pictures and video files.
I had a chat with moderator Sally Taft, also at the conference and showing the moderating process in the exhibition area.
How many people come to the BBC site to discuss the news?: ‘The number of contributions we get is very different depending on the topic. Sensitive issues like Iran, the Mohammed cartoons or recent political allegations can result in thousands and thousands of comments within days. And we read all of those before they get posted online!”
Most discussions run for a few days before they are closed – and there is a difference between actively and fully moderated discussions. Contributions from registered website visitors are published immediately for the less sensitive debates, but still reviewed after the fact.
To get an idea: yesterday a discussion was started on ‘How can we solve The Baby gap‘ , and to date, 851 comments are published – and 428 comments still await approval. In general, one out ten contributions is considered too off-topic or too rude, racist or sexist to publish (the percentage goes up for politically sensitive issues). Sally is one of a team of 4 moderators at the BBC that do nothing but rejecting or approving contributions all day, from 8 in the morning to 11 in the evening. And of course there are also people who just read the discussion and do not comment.
Do how popular is the Have your say page?
“So far today, 97.615 unique visitors visited the section, and they together generated 319.000 page impressions. Of those, 62.816 were attributable to the Baby gap discussion. But discussions about Prince Harry or Home Secretary Charles Clarke generated around 130.000 and 150.000 page views per day when the debate was still on”.
How many people are now handling contributions from the audience?
“The moderators are part of the ‘User generated content’ hub that was established last year after the London bombings. The unit also works with 6 journalists that are actively solicitting information from the audience on behalf of various BBC producers. They also through and organise the incoming photo’s and stories, and they save and store relevant cases and eye witness account. And an additional 4 journalists were assigned specific regions, in and outside the UK”.
How does one get to be a Have your say moderator?
“I had already started working at the BBC working in digital text editing, and moved from there. Reviewing discussion contributions all day is not something you want to do forever, but it is a very nice job to start with!”
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
Free speech is off the menu at the BBC?
Who are the Digital Assassins…?
As a We Media Fellow or a ‘”WE-J”, I was asked to blog around today’s 3:10 pm session, provocatively titled: Meet the Digital Assassins. Having just arrived at the BBC and still slightly jetlagged from my flight from New York, I decided to ask what exactly a Digital Assassin is before blogging about it. What in fact are these √Åssassins expected to talk about, i wondered. Embarrassed at my lack of knowledge, I turned to one of the panel participants and inquired why they had agreed to speak as a Digital Assassin, and what exactly that means to them. The response completely took me by surprise: ” I have no idea what it means. I simply received an email inviting me to speak and here I am”. So I pushed, probing for some deeper meaning of what the panel is all about; I didn’t get far; the panelist reiterated my suspicion, he has no clue. Strangely, I received a similar response from one of the WE Media Center staffers…Now here I sit, typing away, trying to figure out who’s who and what’s what. If the conference staffers and the panelists don’t know, who does? I daintily did a quick search on the net – Google would know, they know everything! Sure enough, the first item that came up can be found here posted from the ‘fringe’. Actually, if you look at the author, you’ll notice that he is in fact a BBC employee. Since when is the BBC considered the fringe? From the little that I’ve seen of the WE Media Conference so far, it seems that we need to practice, not just preach the idea of critical thinking, where each of us, whether panelist, blogger or audience member, take responsability for shaping this conference, as opposed to letting the conference shape us.
Below are the main points made by the 30 Digital Assassins, each invited to sit at a table with a group of traditional media representatives. :
-who are these Digital Assassins? Who do they trust?
Answer: they are consumers who represent a psychographic, a group of people, across several demographics that are more likely to get news from websites and more likely to write blogs than read them.
- Are they assassins or are they partners?
Table 27 Richard Harris is asked the following:
‘”Tell us about your media day, someone from the corporate world wants to know. “‘My homepage is the BBC and it allows me to get an idea of what is going on in the world but it is the syndication browsers that give me the details of the world that I care about, I work from home; I haven’t read a paper for the last 10 years; I re-feed the news I find relevant through my site.”
Table 22 Mike Ryan talks about his favorite mode of information delivery
Lillianne, Why do they call you a Digital Assassin?
“I have no idea- saw a posting and was curious”:
Mike watches the morning news on his hand-held device as opposed to his computer or his television. He likes U-Tube. He doesn’t watch TV at all in fact.
Table 23 Neil Roberts
Neil says: “I tend to go to a blog that builds up a reputation and go with it, like word of mouth. It’s far more effective than spam. I am a programmer; I have quick breaks so I like to scan news/info aggregators on the net.”
Neil wants to know whether the members of the mainstream media at the table isn’t relevant- he wants to know what they think about the way he experiences media. So, I asked Peter, also at the table. Peter has worked in the wired news buisness for 16 years now : “Your media usage is quite utilitarian as opposed to general’
“How do you decide what gets reported”, Neil wants to know of Neil’s company policy. “‘Our clients decide’”. responds Peter. Ah, that brings me to the following question, are we talking about a group of Digital Assassins or simply a group of Digital Dissidents?
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
I was surpised with my time with our digital assassin who was very good at telling me stuff, but didn’t think to ask me anything. So much for conversation. All a bit ill thought out and a bit daft.
I think the term “Digital Assassin” is a metaphor for what’s going on in media today. Like any metaphor, it takes a little thinking to be able to express clearly what the metaphor means. Pehaps Juliet didn’t get the answers she was looking for because people were trying to follow a pretty packed conference program and didn’t want to take the time to give a thoughtful answer. Since she obviously was the one person who WAS thinking about it, it’s too bad she didn’t offer her own thoughts of what it means. To me, a “Digital Assassin” is someone who lives in the digital world, embracing innovation, experimenting with new content forms and delivery, and celebrating the connectivity to millions of viewpoints everywhere. They are “assassins” in that they are at the vanguard of change in the mediascape that’s killing, if you will, old media, old business models, old thinking. I hope others will join me here and give their understanding of what the term means.
The whole point of being a ‘digital assassin’ is that you shouldn’t be taken seriously. Hence.
My new blog gets around 100 unique visitors a day, and around five times as many hits (excluding search engines). This has being growing day by day since I launched the site a week or so ago. At least a 1/3 of people have been coming back. Not bad for a blog with no big names and no money behind it.
Clearly people don’t mind me extolling the virtues of not being taken seriously because they wouldn’t keep coming back.
As one of the Assassins, I agree with Graham that the whole thing was a bit ill thought out. We received a scanty brief in advance, little more before we were ushered in and in the 20 minutes allocated to the “conversation” no real time to establish a dialogue. My experience was a quick-fire round of questions I had no time to consider and had to answer off the cuff (let alone respond to with thoughtful questions of my own). It was an interesting idea, but perhaps too gimmicky in its implementation – I’m not sure what the conference delegates were expecting from it, but I doubt it was quite what they got.
I agree with Gloria Pan… I thought the same idea of a metaphor… Digital Assasins… I would say slowly killing old media.
I think it’s rather a peyorative adjective… and I think it’s sad that the panelists didn’t know what they were there for… at least they could have tried to explain if they agreed or not with this idea of being called assasins…
I’m proud of all the people who try to follow up with new techonolgies and adapt the way of thinking and working to these.
If this is being assasins…. OK… in every change there’s people needed to start!
Today was a let-down and this session was the worst of it. Congrats to the BBC for trying to come up with something different (we need more experiments, but this one frankly didn’t work). To quote the increasingly annoying nomeclature of the day, how are we supposed to decode this? A sub-conscious attempt at brand assasination? We’ve managed to wear out the term “conversation” through repetition and we’re only half-way through. A plastic presenter reading tired jokes off his clipboard and a bunch of new media early-adopters plonked in our midst “to make conversation” does not make for meaningful engagement. Ill-timed and a cringeworthy attempt at hip-ness. Perhaps if these “assassins” *groan* represented some facet of YOUTH, CULTURE, anything not already represented at the forum it may have been more meaningful.
My assasin (same table as Graham above) spent the entire time relaying how much time he spends downloading stuff, and which technologies he uses (iPod, bit torrent, etc). He was pretty excited about it! He didn’t ask us questions at all, he was a man on a mission to unload to us all of the ways he spends time online.
What’s fascinating to me is that I spent time this morning prior to today’s start speaking with two BBC people who were very excited about the Digital Assasin segment. They learned a lot of information about how technology is used and how content is appropriated. I think that depending on where you are on the new media continuum, you will have gotten a different perspective from the discussion.
The digital assassins programme was something which the BBC have been invested in for about 2 years, and was intended as a method of informing BBC staff at all levels of emerging technologies and the ‘fringe’ public of those technologies use.
It was a very succesful program within the BBC as more time was allocated in the sessions held internally, and is in principle an excellent idea; bringing those citizens who are actively creating and using new technologies to bypass ‘old media’ – generally this focusses on new ways of consuming media; bittorent,gnutella/limewire,DRM circumvention,time lapse TV and recording habits (thereby circumventing ad models) – thoroughly interesting and hard to find data really.
I was invited to attend wemedia as a digital assassin but unfortunately couldn’t make it; my experience with the program through the last two years was interesting so I am dissapointed that attendees weren’t able to get much out of it.
Being one of the ‘assassins’ I have to agree with the comments about the lack f briefing and also clarity about the role. That said I did get a lot out of the experience and this was due to the individuals on the table I was allocated being interested, polite and curious.
I was thankful for the opportunity and maybe on this occasion the experiment didn’t work but you got to break some eggs to make an omelette 
Big Idea 3
Live blogging
16:00 Big Idea 3: Conversation with Richard Sambrook (BBC)
-interviewed by Andrew Nachison (Media Center)
Question: Have you heard anything here that has opened your eyes to send you thinking in another direction?
RS: We easily get trapped in either/or mindset: MSM vs. Bloggers, get over it. We live in a remixed mash-up world.
All of us here at the conference are connected somehow, there are others not here who are not wired and their voices are not being heard. There are social gaps as well and how we plug those gaps is the big issue.
AN: The world is already flooded by info. What happens when that explodes with even more info?
RS: Success is traditionally measured by numbers. In an on-demand environment, appreciation is valued.
AN: New objectives?
RS: BBC must be about appreciation. We are all in this 24 hour world and the immediacy of the internet, but we must provide depth.
AN: How you provide content? Looking at it from the bottom-up perspective, how does this fit?
RS: Citizen journalism can be broken down into eyewitness, blogs and opinions, breaking news, and “Dan Gillmor” moment, as there are experts out there. How to reach and enable the public to improve our service?
AN: How is the conversation within the BBC?
RS: We’ve made big strides. 2005 was a watershed year, recognizing availability and value. This year we must talk about how to access depth of expertise.
Question: Definitions of citizen journalism. Totally missing is small j journalism. What is your definition of citizen journalism?
RS: We are never going to arrive at a agreed-upon definition, I personally don’t like the definition. Citizen media or user content. There are some blogs that want to be about journalism and others about their cats and many in between. Embrace diversity of viewpoints, for example Global Voices.
Question: Audience being more knowledgeable than journalists. To what extent do the language you use to describe content provider and audience is outdated? Does it still hold value?
RS: Everything in between is possible. It is still in play, many just want to consume. For those people that want to do it themselves, fine. There is a mass audience, some want to play and others want to just consume.
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
If the Net was a real revolution it would, of course, simply destroy Old Media.
One key trend is now obvious – the more partisan the medium, the more likely it is that the Net will kill it. National newspapers – already terminal. The BBC – trusted to a degree, but a narrow, heavily edited, output means it will never be unassailable.
Beware: Evolution can be rapid, there is no time to prevaricate. Met any nice Neanderthals lately?
The World is not flooded by information. The World is flooded with people who want to know everything, who think it is possible to know everything, who think that knowing everything is helpful… One day they will realise that they can be happy with just the Net and a life of their own. Then the information they need and want will be there, waiting for them. The rest they will ignore. That’s the price of freedom and power – you learn what you don’t know, and you live with it.
Citizen journalism does not need to be broken down into categories. It’s this simple: There are those who want to chip in, and there are those who want to listen, and there are those who don’t want to know. Chip-In Media (CHIME) is flexible.
If I want to chip in on brain surgery I will be ignored – I have no reputation.
When I want to chip in on the the subject of the Net people listen. My reputation is still uncertain – but I am informed, I offer insight, I give value. I sow the seed of reputation. Recognition will follow.
Citizen Journalism Forum – Who’s Making the News?
14.10 session moderated by Paul Holmes (Reuters), with (left to right on stage) George Brock (The Times), Helen Boaden (BBC), David Gyimah (Video Journalist), RachelNorthLondon (blogger), Andrew Hawken (MSN.com)
Live blogging:
Paul Holmes introduces the session, with a video of 4 minutes talking about citizen journalism’s role in the London bombings,
RachelNorthLondon (http://rachelnorthlondon.blogspot.com/) talks about blogging the London bombings, typing the story urban75 london community message board and eventually was asked to blog for BBC.
George – is it newsworthy? What goes through mind with any – does it help fill out the picture, and is it true? Difference between journalism and communication.
Helen – “It’s easier when you have a massive story.” Someone had the wit to film their clock, to record what time it happened. The “truth” is important in reporting.
David – Compare journalists with the army – conscripts are drafted to fight in the army. Compare professional journalists and citizen journalists. Characterize it as a dynamic flow. Citizens have always been repositories for stories but now say, “I want to tell the story myself.” Traditional media is grappling with this.
Andrew – A reader of RachelNorthLondon, and understood the story by reading her diary. But he says he would not have seen the content if it had not been for the BBC pointing to it. Blog content can add to your understanding of the story.
Paul – Was originally going to have Salam Pax (the Iraqi blogger) by satellite, which gave inside view of what was happening in Baghdad. Some doubted he was really in Baghdad. How to decide what’s true and credible when bombarded with so many messages?
Helen – BBC has a desk with good journalists who check the facts and determine “what’s real.” For example, Daily Mirror photos of soldier abuses were quickly identified as fakes by photo experts.
George – Anybody can be a publisher or broadcaster, consumers will choose, sifting, popularity rankings.
Paul – What questions do you ask yourselves when blogging?
Rachel – She first wrote about personal events, then became more political blogger, and “how it affected me.” She was originally a news hound, but became even more so after July 7. She checks out IndyMedia or Al Jazeera for other perspectives. You are pulling information and cross reference with your own experiences, and has caused her to question everything.
Andrew – Journalists are fallible, makes mistakes. Need to be transparent when they are wrong, to gain trust over time.
George – Papers should have the words “About 80% of this is true.”
Helen – Journalism is journalism, it’s not history.
Rachel – For the blogosphere 80% is pretty good, “because about 90% of it is rubbish.”
David – There are bloggers that we go to for news, and it’s allowed us to find new voices.
Paul – Values, is there a room for values on the MSN portals?
Andrew – Yes, we have to be 100% accurate in the headlines that are written.
Helen – Being “bullied by blog” is very real. Need to see the downsides as well as the upsides.
Rachel – Bloggers will to a certain extent settle on an issue and become a feeding frenzy. It’s representative of human nature, rather than journalism. People get excited about stories.
Question from Leonard Witt, PJ Net – People don’t need mainstream media to decide what’s the truth. Journalists have never been good at ruminating. How does the MSM see themsleves as part of the greater truth?
David – Journalism is also a business, there is not an issue with what Leonard’s saying.
George – MSM never set themselves up as the ones deciding the truth. Reliability is most important, and it’s an iterative process.
Question from South Asia perspective – Bloggers perceived to lack credibility, which is not valid.
Andrew – Important how good it is, how insightful it is.
Report from chat rooms – MSM is the necessary starting point of conversation for bloggers. Some sentiment there is a resentment of bloggers.
Panelists list blogs they read, including BBC, Slate, and others.
Question from audience – Blogs generally don’t feed back into mainstream media.
Helen – They do, by email and other ways.
Andrew – Regarding Iraq, citizen journalism as deepening understanding of a subject, corrective function,
Helen – Reminds folks of older form of citizen journalism – the phone-in. Provides an amazing diversity of opinions, plurality of voice, challenge to conventional wisdom.
Paul – But someone selects who gets heard.
Rachel – About 50,000 people read her blog a day
Question from Michael Tippett, NOW – If you have folks on the ground reporting, editorial views, and Technorati and Digg, where does MSM fit into the mix?
David – Citizen journalists don’t have to fit into the mainstream.
Group question – Where are we going to be in debate in one year’s time? What can we do to get there?
Andrew – I hope we won’t have the same debate. We need to move on, from journalist vs. blogger. The discussion should be about quality. Developers and technical people need to be involved
Rachel – Like Guardian and BBC let people feed directly into stories, introduce some element of moderation. Lightly moderated talk boards, feed into main story to enhance it.
David – Corporations to adapt will have greater dialogue. There is a way now to have a dialogue.
Helen – Rather than wanting something to happen, describe what will happen in time – There will be a terrific hoax that someone will take stock of their quality as a journalists. A citizen journalists will get hurt or “even worse” and who is going to look after this person?
George – Three things won’t change – words will be important, there will still be MSM, those “MSM will be upturned by something we can’t foresee.”
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
Journalism is not history, but, should journalists need to put their stories into historical context?
I keep hearing that phrase – 90% (or some other high number) of the blogosphere is rubbish.
What does that mean? Every blog out there is someone’s baby, someone’s words and deep thoughts. Any particular blog may not speak to everyone, but it speaks to its author.
To cover the blogosphere with a blanket of negativity takes away the experiences that any individual and perhaps mostly unheard blogger is trying to relay.
This doesn’t mean that any blog is accurate in some kind of news media sense. But any person’s experience and emotion is valid for that person, and certainly not “rubbish.”
I think the entire hit counter/ number of links from/ rankings really affect the perception of what is a good vs. “rubbish” blog.
I think it would be clearer if we talk about 2 things:
* News facts – which can come from citizen journalists – and I think the news media will continue to present the overall picture of what is happening
* Comment – and here I think the bloggers are very important. In particular I have the feeling that normal media does not think like I do – or like my friends do. They seem to have an agenda and are tolerant ofcompanies that you shouldn’t be tolerant of – and at least sometimes to politicians that you shouldn’t be tolerant of.
I think that part of the reason that we have been so slow to respond to global warming is that it has not been reported with urgently in the media. Because it upsets the powerful.
What has not been mentioned is that it’s the job of the media to speak the truth to power – and currently they aren’t great at that.
Bloogers have nothing to lose and that’s why they can be outspoken – they’re the voice of the people! And they have passiion about what they do – they really want things to change – they don’t just want to report the news.
So I think part of this debate should be about the overall role of the media – and then if that is in place, it would change the way forward!!
Cheers
Mike
Most of this conversation seems to be focused on the same old thing: reporting.
There’s no discussion about interaction, and no discussion on transparency. Credible bloggers have transpanency and the ability to interact, which is something that journalists, for the most part, are *not* allowed to engage in at the same level that bloggers are capalbe.
Even if they are “disaster bloggers”–getting noteriety thru the old-fashioned “if it bleeds, it leads” way, their transparency and ability to interact are key components to their success.
Eduardo is also very right on another level–numbers and links, right now, show authority. People go to blogs where there is a perception of authority based on numbers. Hence, the biggest “citizen journalists” are often those folks who used to be journalists. When there isn’t a on-the scene disaster, a person’s “cred” or “authority” is what makes them a credible cit. j.
So much of this polemic has been focused on the antagonism between the citizen journalist and the professional journalist. What of the symbiosis between the two? It seems that at every point in this discussion the coexistence of CJs and PJs is mutually beneficial. I have no idea, but I would imagine that CJ blogs increase traffic to nearly all mainstream news sites.
If the issue is truth and a public better informed to make political decisions then I would say that the combination of the two will better achieve this end, or at least making available truer forms of the truth. Even the antagonism has produced fruitful debate.
Who will guard the guards? Who has guarded the press in its role as the fourth estate? Will bloggers be a check to the traditional media that people have become increasingly disenchanted with?
George: Does it [presumably blogging] help fill out the picture, and is it true? Difference between journalism and communication
+
David: Citizens have always been repositories for stories but now say, “I want to tell the story myself.”
We can’t see the difference George. That’s why you’re redundant.
David: Journalism is also a business
Err, no it isn’t – most bloggers are not paid to do what they do, just as most artists are not paid to do what they do. Of course, that might be because most citizens have seen too much artistry in professional journalism…
Helen: There will be a terrific [presumably Net-based] hoax [and therefore?] someone will take stock of their [bloggers?] quality as a journalists
To quote Baloo the Bear: “Get with the rhythm Baggy!” Hoaxes are a part of everyday Net life today. Hoaxes are a part of everyday life everywhere. The quality of journalism is highly variable. You, no doubt, believe everything you read in the Daily Sport… GIVE ME A BREAK!
Helen: A citizen journalist will get hurt or “even worse” and who is going to look after this person?
At last, a serious subject, but one that requires far more attention than we can give it here, as this story illustrates:
http://www.rsf.org/country-47.php3?id_mot=246&Valider=OK
Judith Miller worked for the New York Times, but she was still thrown in pokey for not revealing her sources. So much for Big Media who trumpet their independence and their ‘protection’ for ‘professional’ journalists who live in countries that [supposedly] value free speech and [claim] leading roles among the World’s democracies, and who never tire of telling the rest of us how it’s done. Right on. We let the Net lose anonimity at our utmost peril.
George: …things won’t change – words will be important, there will still be MSM… etc.
Dream on George. Ignorance is bliss, eh?
Want a romantic version of Star Wars?
Future Forward is the name given to the small exhibition in the BBC studio where today’s Wemedia global sessions are being held. British Telecom mans a small stand, showing off the early results of a research project modestly called ‘New media for a new millennium‘ (NM2) .
Future Forward is the name given to the small exhibition in the BBC studio where today’s Wemedia global sessions are being held. British Telecom is showing the early results of a research project modestly called ‘New media for a new millennium‘ (NM2) .
It happens to be one of those multi-country-multi-organisation beasts supported by the European Union’s Framework 6 research programme, and has 13 partners in 8 countries working on new software tools for broadband TV. But let’s not dismiss it right away: companies like BT, Telefonica, Sony, Cambridge University and the like would not dedicate time and staff to it if they did not feel they could use their results in the near future..
What NM2 is developing is a set of software tools aimed at creating personalised productions from a larger pool of original content. Putting together writers, TV producers and technology experts, ‘story structures’ are developed, and tags added to separate and identify different programme elements. From genre, to topic, to place in the schedule. All this with the idea that individual users have very specific desires: do you want the 5 minute version of this particular show, you want to decide on length and genre and be surprised otherwise, or do you want a 20 minute romantic version with this particular main character? The ‘adaptable interactive videos’ resulting can be viewed online on the NM2 website..
As its says on the site, NM2 aims to identify ‘a new mass market media genre’. I am sure we will only see what it really means when all the programme elements as well as the tools to re-combine them, are released to the wider audience. After all, it might not be so much about building your own personal TV show – it may be much more about sharing your own TV show with others…
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
To become a reality IPTV needs carriers to move the political goalposts.
This is already happening in the US:
http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politechbot.com%2Fdocs%2Fensign.telecom.bill.072705.pdf&siteId=22&oId=2100-1035-5807278&ontId=1035&lop=nl.ex
European carriers, and BT in particular, cannot expect an easy ride for such changes.
All of which avoids the obvious question:
What is IPTV for exactly?
If carriers stopped spending money on political machinations they could easily afford the cost of testing very big bandwidth. If carriers stopped spending money on putting electronic toll gates for information, at the front of every home and business, they could afford to instal very big bandwidth instead.
If we all had very big bandwidth we would be paying the carriers enough to make a living.
IPTV, or NM2, means
– Charging for connection; and
– Charging the user to download; and
– Charging the publisher to upload.
Or: Charging three times for one message.
Ergo; It seems to me that this is about the carriers making more of a killing than a living. I don’t mind people making a living, but I do mind people killing my bank balance…
What makes a citizen journalist? Any disaster will do
In the Ciziten Journalism Forum being held right now, the main question is: “What can we do to energise this army of citizen journalists out there?”
A short BBC item first highlighted how many videos and images made by citizens are already part of mainstream news reporting. Tsunamis, bombings, floodings, accidents: there is little that can happen these days, without witnesses responding immediately, recording images, audio and video. And at the moment, many of these materials reach mainstream media: within 15 minutes of the London bombings on July 7 2005, the BBC started receiving images that were later shown on TV and on the BBC websites. And companies like Scoopt are assisting citizens to sell relevant material to the media.
In the Citizen Journalism Forum being held right now, the main question is: “What can we do to energise this army of citizen journalists out there?”
A short BBC item first highlighted how many videos and images made by citizens are already part of mainstream news reporting. Tsunamis, bombings, floodings, accidents: there is little that can happen these days, without witnesses responding immediately, recording images, audio and video. And many of these materials reach mainstream media very quickly: within 15 minutes of the London bombings on July 7 2005, the BBC started receiving images that were later shown on TV and on the BBC websites. Companies like Scoopt are now also assisting citizens to sell relevant material to the media.
Of course citizen reporters are more than the free ears and eyes of mainstream media companies – but this is often where it starts. Or as “Rachel from North London” told the audience, ‘I was writing as a survivor’. Rachel is an active weblogger who started blogging after being trapped on one of the trains during the London bombings. She got treated for minor injuries in the hospital, made it home through a chaotic London, and found a commuter message board where people had been posting messages all day long. ‘I felt a a real need to tell my story, and was frustrated with there being no reports on what had really happened in my train’.
A few days later she got a request from a BBC journalist to write an online diary on the BBC website for seven days after the bombings. “Passengers from my particular train started to follow my blog – in my case my blog was born out of a need to tell the truth and to just tell everyone what had happened. I was writing as a survivor.”
So rule one: major news events can make ordinary citizens into citizen reporters, just like that. Or as someone on the panel said: this simply was newsworthy material. But what else can citizen journalists do?
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
“What can we do to energise this army of citizen journalists out there?”
Provide the tools and the training for groups who typically do not own digital means to become citizen journalists. I wonder what the ratio of journalism schools to populations might be in some of the developing world. Training can help instill some of the qualities needed by citizen journalists.
Old Media has always used ordinary [more often the not-so-ordinary (a.k.a. Stringers), in a privilaged position, true - but the ordinary too] to gather its news.
The only thing that has changed is that the Net has levelled the barriers to entry to publish.
The result is that, to the delight of many, niche subjects are being properly covered – for the first time – and citizens are, at last, free to tell their own story without having to suffer the humiliating experience of seeing a reporter and editor make a hash of it.
You fall into the trap of only thinking that what are considered newsworthy events today are what makes good blogging at risk of severe embarassment – probably from your children.
This is because there is a big difference. The Net has feedback. Shysters are found out very quickly already. The Net arrived without the ability to find the cream – and skim. Reputations all started uncertainly – particularly given Old Media’s inability to get a clue and get connected.
But, nature abhors a vacuum. New sites and software that help to find, filter, store, classify, and judge are arriving every day. The best will win hearts and minds and within as little as two years the Net and bloggers will be the primary source of news and news comment.
Media & Civic Discourse
Richard Dreyfuss, Actor and Activist
Commented on previous panel—–
- Entertainment. The future of network news. It wasn’t meant to make money. Now it’s all about profit.
Part of the Oxford U Research in teaching curriculum. Not teaching civics affects the Republic of Democracy. Sovereignty given over to Special Interests.
* Reason
* Logic
Old rules of dissemination no longer applies. Now, facts are known instantaneously everywhere.
Now, people can’t afford to think things through. Knowing things cannot prevent doing damages.
It’s still better to know than not to know. We should still be thoughtful about our actions.
The new technology is demanding how we re-think things. The challenge is how fast and how responsible can one make decisions nowadays?
From the western world, we don’t allow or honor debate, thus no civility. Democracy is sharing with those who dissent.
Technology can lead us to fatal decisions, it does not allow for any errors.
He is in Oxford to develop tools that can be taught with fun and reason, logic.
Questions from participants:
* How are traditional filmmakers doing?
DF: Storytelling for over 3000 years, hope people can go back to that.
* Fostering civic discourse is not profitable, sometimes people in media have to look at the bottom line. Question is whether the market can sustain media and democracy?
DF: People will keep lowering the bar if news equate entertainment. One has to think quality and not just profit.
* Can new technology support more diversified opinions?
DF: The pressure now is media don’t have the time to respond thoughtfully.
* How much conventional media contribute to civic discourse?
DF: How do you create a generation of kids who like to learn?
DF: The war on terror—–journalists are not demanding clarity, not asking enough questions.
** How students from 4 different countries contribute to citizens democracy. Cite students’ questions.
DF: older versions are virtuous. Nervous about this generation running the new technology, they are not giving it enough time.
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
From the western world, we don’t allow or honor [sic] debate Speak for yourself – I see it every day, on the Net.
Now, people can’t afford to think things through. Knowing things cannot prevent doing damage Demonstrably not true. As my grandmother always used to tell me: “More haste, less speed”.
This is a question of philosophy. If the good people of Oxford University had taken the trouble to think this through (!) they might have concluded that there is a weakness in our poor education:
– We do not teach our children even the basics of philosophical reflection – and only logic is seriously alluded to as a technique for evaluation;
– We only teach our children deductive skills through the cause and effect they find in basic science classes (much to the chagrin of many scientists);
– We teach our children a fixed curriculum – thus ensuring that most are taught by rote thus ensuring that the vast majority never discover lateral thinking:
http://www.edwdebono.com/debono/lateral.htm
let alone develop such skills; and
– Creative teaching is limited to expression at near the lowest level (the double entendre is about as far as it gets).
A proper education would mean that the next generation would have the skills to make decisions in a World that can offer all the information you could ever want.
Fostering civic discourse is not profitable, sometimes people in media have to look at the bottom line. Question is whether the market can sustain media and democracy?
This question manages to completely avoid adding any value to this discourse. Fostering public discourse is of enormous value over time. Why else would the vast majority of democracies be richer today than any other form of government? The question should be:
Is the public trust of fact dissemination and taking the chair in the political discourse between the politicians and the citizenry best served by preserving resource limitations that create publishing oligopolies and limiting free speech through copyright monopolies?
Given the severe penalties imposed by an oligopoly of Press Barons engaged in a race to the bottom of the lowest common denominator of ‘News as Entertainment’ with the power to set the political agenda, the vast wealth that Private Media Barons corner as parasites on the political discourse, and the ability of Old Media to undermine true discourse by pandering to, and promoting, special interests – I know my answer.
The real question is:
Can we make the Net into a place where citizens feel they are plugged back into the politics? Again, I believe that the current state of affairs speaks for itself. The best Net is an unregulated Net.
Free mobile software for a good cause
The WeMedia conference is about ‘a society connected by digital networks’ and most of the discussion revolves around the new relations between audiences and traditional media companies. So far little has been said about specific technology advances – we know about blogs, we do, but what else is out there?
One of the companies showing off its services in the small exhibition in the BBC studio where the event is held today is a UK based mobile software house called Picsel. What is their offer? In short, their main product is mobile-phone independent software which can be used to view a wide range of document types while on the move (see their demo ). The software usually makes it into the world bundled with mobile phones or specific content services, but can also be purchased online by individuals.
As part of Picsel ‘s contribution to mankind – or as part of their ongoing marketing effort if you take a more cynical view of the software industry – Picsel CEO Imran Khand just announced that Proviewer will be available at no charge to specific non-profit organisations: “We invite all non-commercial pilot projects that endorse democracy of access to contact us!”
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
What functionality would you like to see on a mobile device? What would most help journalists?
http://enoughzimbabwe.org is a project I helped set up last month that aggregates Zimbabwean blogs and multimedia. The front page is edited by a fantastic blogger who goes by the name Zimpundit. Thought that might be of interest.