The speakers first address the audience.
Geordie Wilson says that he could approach the changing face of the media as either "an optimist or a curmudgeon." He speaks of the problems facing the media today--the erosion of disinterested journalism and the lack of shared information, among others. "We all seem to inhabit increasingly disparate information silos," he said. He speaks of conflation, citing the statistic that there are 30% fewer reporters today than there were in 2005.
"The good is real but it has come at a great cost," he says.
However, new media has not reached its full potential. New media still depends on traditional media for raw information. "New media for all its promise is an amplifier not a generator of the news."
“An amplifier, not generator, of media…”
ReplyDeleteFor some time now, this has been a concept that I have wanted to touch upon during class. Can those sources of new media really be fairly identified as a news source when all it’s doing is simply reverberating an unoriginal piece of information? I don’t think so. In all honesty, I think that the only appeal of such” amplification” is that it applies a new (or often not) level of bias that might be subtler or nonexistent in any of the original sources. This is intimately linked to the Sunstein pitch – that these small but ubiquitous sources can present information through a new lens and create a specific niche that’s attractive to those polarized consumers. Should these sources be polarizing? Should the consumers consume? Let’s just say call that a whole different can of worms that I will not be going into right now…
The can of worms that I am willing to dive into right now is these simultaneously hollow and polarized echoes of media will make it if and when there are no sterling sources to withdraw original stories from. Will they blossom and arrive at a time and place where they can work off of an insured method of revenue production and match the required effort of a major news source? Will they die out? Or instead will the whole new media landscape evolve into a Darwinian system of natural selection and survival of the most consumed? I have no short (if any) answers and would love to hear someone else’s thoughts on the issue. Anyone care to weigh in with predictions?
These are really intriguing thoughts...
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to agree with you on the idea that those sources of new media cannot be fairly identified as a news source. However, I'm predicting that some if not all of these sources of media will blossom and thrive as long as we the people have access to them, perhaps even develop to become their own intense media corporations. The chances that they will die out I believe are, frankly, slim.
Natural selection and survival seems like a reasonable outcome, but there will always be someone who agrees with one thing or the other. Thus I think that it is more of a question of which ones will prosper more than others, as opposed to which ones will survive and which ones will become extinct. Of course, the results of so-called new media are infinite, and further I think will continue to expand and advance.
I’m curious to hear more on your theory of how new media will blossom. Are you envisioning a progression of say, a low-key blog, gradually making a bit of money from perhaps one of Greenberg’s methods for media profit and slowly taking on the resources required to dig for the real stories and present them as new, legitimate news? I would say that I think it’s a probable theory and we have seen a bit of it already with blogs like the Huffington Post and Politico.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am interested to see, however, is the shift in the polarization. I feel that what makes most of these (currently) small-scale “news” sources is their unique culmination of stories and biases related to them. Can these distinct views survive in the progression to publicity and greater consumption? Should they? Will/should we as responsible consumers allow our core media outlets to operate and present stories in such a way? Will this originality and polarized nature instead burn off as producers enter new stratospheres of success? Or, with connection to the previous comment about a Darwinian system of natural selection, will those sources that are more moderate from the get-go be the ones to outstrip their competition? Will the ones who hold polarized yet broadly accepted views (i.e. strongly liberal v strongly conservative) be the ones that we as consumers want – to have the opportunity to stand a rather large and crowded “echo chamber”, to use Greenberg’s term.
I know that, much like my previous post, I seem to be much better at asking questions than answering them, but, again, I do love to hear feedback from others and bounce alternative thoughts and points of view around.
You guys both brought up really interesting ideas. A point that Mr. Wilson touched on later in the Forum is the idea of providing news that the consumer is interested in. Unfortunately, a large number of Americans read more celebrity tabloids than news from respectable media sources. As the new forms of media allow people to insulate themselves in only what they want to hear, we are moving towards a very ignorant society. I feel that there definitely needs to be some intervention. Whether it’s the government or another group, the new media sources should be pressured to report factual and important information. This is essential, especially if we think that these smaller media producers might soon be the only source of news.
ReplyDeleteI also feel that because America likes to be entertained, usually more than they like to be informed. This is why I think that informational sources of media are so important to the changing media landscape. Shows such as John Stewart and Colbert are fun to watch and allow you to gain some knowledge about current events. Granted, these shows generally take their news from other respectable producers and they would not be as informative if it weren’t for the big name producers. Providing sufficient funding for these media outlets would be a good investment as we face future difficulties in this area. I’m not saying that John Stewart and Colbert should replace more serious and informative media producers but they will be helpful to combat the upcoming problem regarding the responsibility to inform and entertain the public.