What's in a degree? Does journalism by any other name smell as sweet?

So apparently this degree I’m spending four years of my life and thousands of dollars on doesn’t count for much these days, all you need to be a journalist is an internet connection!

This does sound a little cynical towards the movement known as citizen journalism, and I will clarify that I am not opposed to this movement per se; however I do have to wonder (as a potential future professional of the industry), how does citizen journalism really stack up against the traditional model? Is a higher standard of quality and accuracy inherent in the content produced by formally qualified journalists? Or is the gist of my (slightly modified) Shakespearian literary quote right - is the only difference between these two forms of journalism the names that they are labelled with?

Citizen journalism is an alternative method of news production and dissemination where everyday citizens have an “active role” in generating and publishing news content (Wikipedia 2008). Essentially it is ‘user-generated’ news and there are a number of platforms supporting the publication of these independent news reports, be they general content publication sites such as personal blogs or YouTube, or formal citizen news platforms such as OhmyNews, Ground Report or Current TV . This of course differs from main stream news reporting in that journalists have formal training and qualifications and also in the publication platforms available in that traditional journalists have access to mainstream print publications and television and radio broadcasters (although with the rise in the popularity of online news this second point is becoming less relevant).

The obvious benefit of grass-roots citizen journalism is the ability to counteract corporate bias and commercial agendas that can pervade mainstream media publications, and according to the origin of the citizen journalist movement, this is precisely its aim. Axel Bruns identifies the source of citizen journalism as an attempt to ensure fair and balanced coverage of the protests aimed at the 1999 World Trade Organisation meeting – an issue some “media activists” feared mainstream news broadcasters and publications would not report on (2008, 69). In this sense, citizen journalism acts as a watchdog for media organisations and I believe this to be a very good thing. However, I cannot believe that the thousands upon thousands of news blogs and videos posted 24-hours a day on various web sites by John and Jane Doe are necessarily a) contributing to the system of checks and balances controlling corporate agenda pushing, or b) offering any information or comments of genuine interest or value. May I be so bold as to suggest that some of these armchair (or is that computer chair?) experts just like to see their name hanging up there in cyberspace? Perhaps this can also be said of some professional journalists, but they usually did a bit more than buy a modem to make it a reality.

The main issues I have with unbridled enthusiasm for citizen journalism are two fold:

1. What happens to codes of conduct and journalistic integrity? Where do these principles fit in the world of citizen journalism, if at all, and how are they enforced? Sure there are user rating systems and sometimes even site moderators, but it just doesn’t seem to be same. There are certain industry standards that qualified journalists adhere to, if for no other reason than that their jobs and reputations depend on it. But there is little reason to believe that an anonymous blogger on a citizen news site will adhere to these same standards other than a faith in their own good intentions.

2. More doesn’t necessarily mean better. The argument goes that increasing the number of voices in the media environment in turn increases the number of alternative perspectives and thus creates a even and balanced view of any given news story (Bruns 2008, 72). I must confess a little cynicism at this point. Of course there is potential in this model for alternative perspectives, but should this goal of having access to hundreds of different perspectives on any one topic be pursued at the expense of say, accuracy and quality? Klein points out that in collaborative situations users tend to “congregate with others of similar view points” (in Mangelsdorf 2008, 11), so it seems that people don’t even want to access viewpoints alternative to their own.

I’m not saying that discussion of news items and expressing different voices and opinions in any environment, including online, is not valuable, in fact quite the opposite, people should care about the news and feel free to discuss it. My point here is why should this be classified as journalism instead of just blogging? With the exception of those citizen journalists who do actually source their own facts and stories, and those who actively combat real instances of mainstream media bias, perhaps the rest should just be left to the professionals.

References

Bruns, A. 2008. News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: Perpetual Collaboration in Evaluating the News. In Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage, A. Bruns, 69-100. New York: Peter Lang. https://cmd.qut.edu.au/cmd//KCB201/KCB201_BK_163501.pdf (accessed May 8, 2008).

Mangelsdorf, M. 2008. A New Way to Collaborate. MIT Sloan Review 49 (3): 11. http://proquest.umi.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/pqdweb?index=0&did=1458948541&SrchMode=2&sid=1&Fmt=6&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1210823677&clientId=14394 (accessed May 10, 2008).

Wikipedia. 2008. Citizen Journalism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism (accessed May 8, 2008).

Citizen 2.0 - political activism in an online world

The interactive capabilities of web 2.0 have many possible applications, but one I find particularly interesting is the opportunity for political activism to be mobilised online. There are many different options and levels of involvement that internet users can select from. Here are just a few examples:

1. Interested citizens can simply become better informed about political issues and parties through party blogs such as the Greens Blog or The Bartlett Diaries created by Senator Andrew Bartlett of the QLD Democrats
2. Political blogs such as Larvatus Prodeo, Blogocracy and Oz Politics all provide insightful discussions and opinion pieces about any and all political issues, and of course readers can contribute their own thoughts as well, either through commenting another post or authoring a post themselves
3. Websites that promote political activism, such as Just Act and change.org are becoming more popular. These sites contain links to information about many different political and social issues and provide options for citizens to get involved, whether that be through an online donation, linking people up to other activists with similar concerns or providing information about how to volunteer or start an activist group project in your local area

So here are just a few options – now you can get involved without even leaving your chair!

The Power of Many

‘Mob’ is a term generally lumbered with negative connotations – it’s the mentality of schoolyard bullies, race rioters and the witch-hunting residents of Salem. While these mobs are not the kind that make any positive contribution to society they all have one key feature in common – power. The power of a mob comes from the sum of its parts, the collective contributions of all its participants, and this power can of course be harnessed for the good of society as well. The problem comes with mobilising these participants. How do you organise a large group of people and coordinate their actions? How do you disseminate information and instructions so that it is accessible by everyone in the group? And how do you ensure the two-way flow of communication so that individuals can disseminate their own information and ideas to the rest of the group as well? In a physical sense this sounds like a logistical nightmare, but in an online, networked community it’s almost second nature.

With the emergence and widespread utilisation of enhanced internet and mobile communication technologies comes the emergence of what Howard Rheingold calls “smart mobs: the next social revolution”, discussed in detail in his book of the same name.

Consider the examples of smart mobs described by Mark Pesce in this blog post Mob Rules.

All of these demonstrate the power of collective intelligence (or lack thereof in examples such as the Cronulla race riots – even smart mobs can be destructive).

There are two main points that I draw from this post:

1. The infrastructure, software, cables, satellite signals and service providers are merely the means to the ends, the value of these components is simply in the connection they provide. Although without the tools such as internet forums, blogs, emails and mobile phone technologies the scale and success of networked communities we see today could not exist, these are only the facilitators of collaboration. It is the individual human participants that give these networks their power, “services mean nothing to the users of the network. The connection of individuals is everything” (Pesce 2007)

2. You don’t need to be an expert to be a valuable contributor to a network.

This idea that ‘no one knows everything but everyone knows something’ is the core concept behind collective intelligence. The ‘something’ of knowledge contributed by each individual becomes, in aggregate, a rich and highly developed information source. This is reflected in the example of the US Attorneys in Pesce’s blog post, in the success of the collaborative free encyclopedia project Wikipedia, and even to some extent in the political arena with the Rudd government’s innovation, the Australia 2020 Summit.

In a virtual network however this open, collaborative model is not without its problems. Firstly, the sheer volume of content that can potentially be created limits the effectiveness of collaboration. In online forums for example, individual contributions (in the form of posts or comments) are simply listed one after another in no logical order or structure other than the time that they were uploaded. Some posts may contain excellent ideas and be highly relevant, whereas others may be of poor quality containing little or no new information. This makes finding useful information very difficult and time-consuming. Secondly, having a completely open system leaves the network vulnerable to destructive participants who can compromise the quality of the source through deliberately adding incorrect information or attacking other users (referred to as flaming).

These issues of organisation and moderation become a problem particularly when attempting to convert the ideas and information that can be gained from online knowledge-sharing into workable solutions to social issues. This problem has been noted by researchers from MIT and the University of Naples, who are currently developing a new platform for online collaboration called a “collaboratorium”, with the aim of applying the result of collaboration to addressing the issue of climate change. The collaboratorium differs from free-form applications such as wikis in that all postings are organised into a logical ‘argument map’ structure, users can rate postings, and a percentage of the community act as moderators who identify where a post should fit in the collaboratorium structure and regulate the quality and relevance of contributions (Mangelsdorf 2008, 11).

So with a few tweaks and the combination of both expert and user-driven knowledge structures, online collaboration can move from simply sharing information to actively contributing to society.

Then again, who said it had to be constructive anyway? Check out these examples of flash mobs:

See what we can achieve by working together? Even if it doesn’t really contribute to the collective knowledge of society, it might just make you smile, and where’s the harm in that?

References

Mangelsdorf, M. 2008. A New Way to Collaborate. MIT Sloan Review 49 (3): 11. http://proquest.umi.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/pqdweb?index=0&did=1458948541&SrchMode=2&sid=1&Fmt=6&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1210823677&clientId=14394 (accessed May 10, 2008).

Pesce, M. 2007. Mob Rules. http://blog.futurestreetconsulting.com/?p=27 (accessed March 6, 2008).

Online Agora

Welcome to the public sphere! No need to leave your house, your room, or even your chair – you’re already here.

Gone are days when the public sphere referred to a physical space – the agora of the cities of ancient Greece or the coffee houses and town squares that flourished in eighteenth century England – not necessarily spherical, but real nonetheless! In this historical context, the public sphere was all about individuals assembling, debating and participating in an open dialogue about society, and in turn affecting and influencing society and those bodies responsible for its governance. This core purpose remains the same today; only now, thanks to the interactive capabilities of web 2.0, the public sphere has gone virtual.

The internet has expanded exponentially, if not erased altogether, the boundaries of the public sphere. Issues of age, race, sex and geography become at least less inhibitory if not totally irrelevant. In most respects I believe this to be a very positive development. Today, in the western, developed and democratic societies of the 21^st Century, the concept of the town square as a place for public discussion is long dead. We would no more gather with our fellow citizens in Brisbane’s King George Square to contribute to a social dialogue than we would invite strangers off the street into our homes for a dinner party; in fact the only people holding (decidedly one-sided) public discussions in city centres these days are usually holding a tattered Bible and a cardboard sign with ‘apocalypse’ scrawled somewhere across it.

So where has the public sphere gone? Where do we go now, as citizens ready and willing to participate in and actively contribute to society? John Hartley, an academic well versed in the field of cultural studies, makes the claim that the media is the new public sphere (cited in Boeder 2005). My main problem with this is that while traditional media formats such as magazines, newspapers and particularly the television certainly do dominate the media landscape and are the primary means by which public communication and information exchange occurs, these formats are very static in nature. Audiences are passive receivers of the content and to influence or contribute to the content in any of these media outlets is very difficult.

Cyberspace however is much more dynamic. The internet provides a multitude of platforms for personal expression, debate and discussion, including blogs, forums, bulletin boards, social networking groups and online communities. Almost anyone can make a contribution on sites such as Blogger, MySpace, Digg, Current TV, Wikipedia and YouTube. In this sense, the internet allows audiences to be produsers, both consumers and producers of content, and thus extends the public sphere beyond the scope of traditional media outlets and creates a more democratic and diverse social forum.

Of course, this is not without complications of its own. Firstly, as identified in a recent post, ‘Saviour of the balance’ on media and communications blog The Plinth of the Quixotic Luddite, the online public sphere is not really very inclusive. Access to this sphere is limited to those with access to the internet. A quick look at these statistics show some serious inconsistencies in world wide internet usage. For example, Australia/Oceania represents the smallest percentage of the world population, yet nearly 60% of Australians have internet access. Asia however makes up more than half of the world population, yet only has a 14% internet penetration rate. It seems the public sphere of cyberspace operates according to the values of predominately western, white and developed nations.

Similarly, when given free access to assemble in a virtual space and discuss an infinite array of topics, you inevitably end up with sites such as Stormfront, an online community for so-called ‘white nationalists’, whose forum includes threads such as “Want To See The Blacks Deported?” (sic) and comments such as “If I was offered one million dollars for every negro I'd permit to remain in this country, I would die a penniless man” (posted by wenck88 of northwest Missouri). I find these comments repulsive, as would most people reading this post, and was horrified that sites such as this even exist. However, should these people be excluded from cyberspace and the virtual public sphere? After all, wenck88 is not excluded from voting in his own country, or even, theoretically, from running for president. This raises the ever-topical point of who has the right to sensor the internet? Another issue for another post…

It can be determined, at least, that the virtual public sphere is no utopia; but neither is the real world. Society is not perfect, humans are not perfect, and so it follows that cyberspace is riddled with the imperfections inherited from its creators and participants. It may have a long way to go, but the virtual public sphere, where users can access and participate in the social dialogue, is a step in the right direction.

References

Boeder, P. 2005. Habermas’ heritage: The future of the public sphere in the network society. First Monday: Peer-Reviewed Journal on the Internet 10 (9). http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1280/1200 (accessed May 6, 2008).

Casualities of the technological revolution

The internet has fundamentally changed the way we live, and social networking tools such as MySpace and Facebook have similarly revolutionised the way we communicate and interact with others. There have been many advantages to this process, but these have not come without a price and I believe that there are casualties of this revolution that have been ignored.

Let us consider the first victim of the technological revolution – human interaction. In a world were we can access alphabetised lists of everyone we’ve ever met on our mobiles; links to our ‘friends’, ‘family’, ‘co-workers’ and that elusive category ‘other contacts’ via MSN; and pretty much everyone in the developed world through MySpace, it may seem strange to you that I name human interaction as a victim – surely there has never been a time when we have been more connected to other people? But let me clarify, I am talking about actual human interaction, not that mediated by screen and modems. Social networking technologies have fundamentally changed the way we interact with people in the 21^st century. We no longer need to open our mouths to have a conversation; we no longer need to move our faces to express emotions. And as we sit, alone and silent behind our computer screens – busily connecting with hundreds of online friends – are we really are any more connected than we have been in the past?

Secondly, and more disturbingly, are cases of actual human victims of the prevalence of social networking technologies in our everyday lives. Sites such as MySpace allow users to create personalised web pages all about themselves as a means of enhancing social interaction and connectivity. Perhaps in our eagerness to share our lives with the world however, we forget that the world is watching, and sometimes it’s not such a nice place. In July last year it was revealed by a US Attorney General, after examining the results of an internal data base review of MySpace, that at least 29,000 registered sex offenders had My Space profiles (Schwankert 2007). Imagine that – 29,000 registered sex offenders just a click of the add button away from your own personal friends list. And that’s just the ones who used their real names. Have you made friends with any sex offenders today? A quick Google News search revels numerous cases of sexual assault where the victim and offender have been connected through MySpace.

The main message here is to give a little consideration to the negative sides of social networking, especially when your own safety is concerned. It’s not all friend pokes and smiley emoticons in the world of social networking.

References

Schwankert, S. 2007. MySpace hosted 29,000 sex offenders. http://www.macworld.com/article/59133/2007/07/myspace.html (accessed May 2, 2008).

The internet got me fired

Okay, so it wasn't quite as malicious as the title of this post suggests; it wasn't a personally directed attack on my livelihood, and I'm certainly not the only one (in my now defunct workplace or any other corner of the music retail industry for that matter) now sprucing up my tired-looking CV - but it still stings.

I love music. It's how I define myself, it's my hobby, my passion...and up until a few days ago it was my job. For the last three years I have been in that rare, coveted position of being happily employed in retail. Three or four days of the week I worked at an independent north side music store selling CDs (remember CDs all you digital downloaders out there...those little circular things with a hole in the middle? Anyone?) Now, after 40 years of business, as a result of continual decline in profits industry wide, coupled with fierce competition from the 'power-buying' chain stores, my little record store is closing it's doors. I have lost my job. And I have more than a strong suspicion that iTunes had something to do with it. Frankly it should be ashamed of itself.

At least, this was my first thought, but upon reflection I find myself wondering, is this reaction really fair? I certainly understand that stamping my foot and shaking my little fist at cyberspace isn't going to change anything, but beyond the scope of my immediate employment situation, is this a process we should actually want to change? Am I just collateral damage, a necessary sacrifice to the greater good, in the technological revolution?

It's not like this (soon to be) old model is so great anyway. Big-business record labels dominate the industry in a very closed and hierarchical system. Musicians are the 'talent', who need to be managed, produced and styled; their music is the 'product' and fans are the 'consumers'. The whole creative process is very tightly controlled by a small number powerful players who get to dictate what we want to hear and who we're going to hear it from, all by throwing the big bucks around. Basically, muso's and fans alike are left out of the loop, and the cracks are starting to appear.

You've probably heard of the fuss Trent Reznor of NIN fame created last year when he publicly shamed his Australian record label, Universal Music, in a blog entry on the official NIN website for what he believed to be the excessive cost of the latest NIN album at the time Year Zero. To add insult to injury, Reznor then encouraged fans at a live show to steal his music by illegal downloading and filesharing (see clip below), before finally giving his label the flick after fulfilling contractual obligations in October, 2007.





Ouch!

And this is where the story gets interesting. Not only did Reznor ditch the record label and start producing and distributing his music independently, but he did so online. Ghosts I-IV, the first album to be released post record label split, was first made available on the NIN website and was available in a number of both digital and physical formats, including a free download of the first nine tracks, $5 for a digital copy of the whole album and $10 for the dowload plus a physical copy of the 2-disc ablum.

The latest album The Slip is available at www.nin.com, in its entirity, completely free.

Of course the success of this little business venture was perhaps skewed by the fact that, well, it was Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor could pretty much release three hours of dial-up monitor tones to critical acclaim. However, the point is still valid - the model is changing, the way we use and access all content, not just music, is changing, and those who don't change with it get left behind (and those who work for those who don't change with it so it seems...)

The possibilities of this change are quite exciting, for producers and audiences alike.