Online Journalism Blog

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2008-09-16T17:25:00.000+02:00

Dan Gillmor: Web Censorship and Citizen Journalism

2008-09-14T13:29:00.002+02:00

Very profound statement by Dan Gillmor, the author of "We the Media" in 2004, on censorship and citizen media/journalism.

The End of the Internet?

2008-09-14T13:24:00.002+02:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_iZgYxSPS0&feature=related

David Silver: History, Hype, and Hope: An Afterward

2008-03-31T20:50:00.003+02:00

This Silver's text published as part of special issue of First Monday dedicated to Web 2.0 is a shortcontribution which does not bring profound insight into the "history, hype and hope" of Web 2.0, but at best (implicitly) grounds some of the issues that need to be addressed: first, re-writing the history of the notion of Web (2.0) and its embeddedness into the politically, economically and culturally specific social contexts; second, a question how to approach the notion of the audeince and its history in the context of the Web 2.0.

Bled: It felt like Apple "1984" Commercial

2008-03-31T15:36:00.003+02:00

Commissioners Viviane Reding and Janez Potočnik were to give opening statements at the conference The Future of the Internet, however, they had other things to do. Instead, the PR office of the European Commission recorded commissioners' statements and projected the recordings to the big screen, so that the people at the conference could enjoy them. These two short speeches were political statements on the importance of further internet evolution - some words were given also on the importance of internet participation, however, the latter was missing in Bled. Simple, old-school one-way flow of communication ... No interactivity, no audience participation ... As Maja Turnšek said: "This two statements were a symbol of European Commission's way of communicating to the public."

It felt like the Apple "1984" commercial - with one small difference, instead of the athlete smashing the screen in Bled people at the conference gave a round of applause at the end of Potočnik's statement.

Bled: Everything 2.0

2008-03-31T15:12:00.003+02:00

I just got back from Bled where I have attended the conference The Future of the Internet together with Maja Turnsek. The conference is organized under Slovenian Presidency with the support of the European Commission. I have listened to opening statements and to the first session - its objective was to outline the socio economic drivers of the on line economy and usages. It was intended to identify how the medium to long term evolution of the networked economy and society will influence technological, regulatory or policy requirements. The speakers one after another glued "2.0" to several terms (Citizen 2.0, Participation 2.0 etc.) and used "Web 2.0" in different fashion and did not even question the meaning. It is clear that the Web 2.0 is a buzzword and it is difficult to follow heterogenity in meanig behind the phrase. It seems David Silver gives a good point in his introduction to the text History, Hype, and Hope: An Afterward (which feels more like an outline to a more profound contribution than a completed scientific text): "There’s something quite brilliant, from a corporate–consumer–marketing perspective, about the term Web 2.0. Its very name – Web 2.0 – embodies new–and–improvedness: a new version, a new stage, a new paradigm, a new Web, a new way of living. Attached to any old noun, 2.0 makes the noun new: Library 2.0, Scholarship 2.0, Culture 2.0, Politics 2.0."

Web 2.0: The End of the Audience?

2008-03-28T19:35:00.002+01:00

The notion of audience has been strongly contested in communication studies since the 1990s through the prism of cultural and technological transformations in media production and consequently fragmentation and specialization in media consumption (cf. Marshall, 2004; Livingston, 2006). These inclinations are also embedded in critical discussions on the phenomenon of Web 2.0 included in the special issue of First Monday – Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0: a new kind of media consumer who is more engaged, active and a participant is emerging in “the key business of the Internet”: creating, maintaining and expanding content (Allen, 2008); the users/producers are “immaterial free labor” and “the base to the superstructure of virtual real estate owners” (Scholz, 2008); the silent and obedient audiences of broadcast media are fading in favor to “the writable generation” (Silver, 2008). These authors approach the construct of the Web 2.0 from different perspectives: Scholz (2008) debunks the myths of the Web 2.0 brand and argues that the popularized phrase limits public media discourse, Allen (2008) approaches Web 2.0 by locating its emergence and significance within the broad movement of convergence of old and new media, Silver (2008) merely briefly »organizes thoughts around history, hype, and hope« of the Web 2.0. However, what seems to be a common conceptual issue of these reflections on Web 2.0 and debates on the online communication in general is the question of the theoretical and empirical fading of the notion of audience. It seems that the future investigations would have to deal with this question: How to approach the audience in contemporary media landscape?

In communication studies audience research – one of the pillars of communication research in the 20th century – has been partitioned according to the type of media consumed with two salient research focuses: contexts of media use and the interpretation of media content (Livingstone, 2006: 339). It seems that within the domain of what Jenkins (2006) calls “convergence culture” or what Deuze (2007) understands as “liquid media life” the term audience poorly fits, because it only satisfactory covers the activities of reading, listening and watching, moreover, it neglects the activating of the users “from a corporate-consumer-marketing perspective” (Silver, 2008) accelerated by “market ideology” (Scholz, 2008) or “ideology for the creation of new forms of dependence between individual humans and corporations” that “by monopolizing and controlling the network activities” benefit from this dependence (Allen, 2008). The term user that has consolidated in the investigations of online communication in recent years seems to allow for the greater variety of modes of engagement, although it tends to be overly individualistic and instrumental, with no specific and necessary relation to communication and neglecting the sense of collectivity and activity (Livingstone, 2006: 353). Therefore, there have been some examples of constructing new phrases – for instance produsers (Bruns, 2008) – that stress the activization of the online audience or online user/s.

Despite superficially presented terminological problem, which derives from related theoretical and empirical issues, the investigations into this “imaginary entity” (Ang, 1991) in the contemporary media landscape should try to be a reminder of constant changes in understanding of the notion of the audience framed by research interests in communication studies in transforming media landscapes specific of politically, economically and culturally specific social contexts from 1930s onwards. In this respect the historical review of the audience should be the theoretical groundwork to contemporary investigations into people’s media engagement in the context of Web 2.0 and broader, however, S. Livingston (2006: 356) acknowledges, that “both in looking back and in looking forward, it is already providing easier to investigate the contexts within which people use media-as-objects than it is to identify the interpretive ‘work’ within audiences engage with media-as-texts”.

Igor Vobič, March 2008

References
Allen, Matthew (2008). Web 2.0: An Argument against Convergence. First Monday 13 (3); available at: http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2139/1946, March 28, 2008.
Ang, Ian (1991). Desperately Seeking the Audience. London: Routledge.
Jenkins, Henry (2006). The Convergence Culture. New York, London: New York University Press.
Deuze, Mark (2007). Media Work. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Livingstone, Sonia (2006). The Changing Nature of Audiences: From the Mass Audience to the Interactive Media User. In: Angharad N. Valvadia (ed.): A Companion to Media Studies, pp. 337–359. Oxford: Blackwell.
Scholz, Trebor (2008). Market Ideology and the Myths of Web 2.0. First Monday 13 (3); available at: http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2138/1945, March 28, 2008.
Silver, David (2008). History, Hype, and Hope: An Afterward. First Monday 13 (3); available at: http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2143/1950, March 28, 2008.

Google Book Srearch and Google Scholar as research mechanisms

2008-03-23T12:49:00.004+01:00

This weekend I have been reading Media Research and Its Histories edited by David Park and Jefferson Pooley - especially one chapter stroke me: Walter Lippman, Straw Man of Communication Research. This chapter deals with "preferred readings" of Lippmann in communication studies and its objective is "to clear away some of the litter and suggest alternative interpretative frames" of Lippmann's work. The authors included in this analysis were selected because they have been most influential in shaping views of Lippmann within the field of communication; new electronic databases make it possible to identify these patterns of influence. Google Book Search and Google Scholar make it is possible to track the frequency of citations as well as patterns of influence by pairing names in the search engines. For example, pairing Walter Lippmann and James Carey identifies all books in the database in which third authors refer to both men as well as the page numbers of these references. The text of the joint citations can then be accessed to determine if an author is basing claims about Lippmann’s work on a primary source, a secondary source, or both. In addition, third and even fourth degrees of separation can be identified, when for example, an author relies upon and acknowledges Carey’s interpretive influence, as Jay Rosen does, but then others build upon Carey’s interpretation without acknowledging it; this can be done by comparing frequencies of references to Rosen and Lippmann to references to Rosen, Carey, and Lippmann. Scholars presumably, as it is stressed in this chapetr, display biases in favor of citing more recent sources, especially in the case of secondary sources (Ewen rather than Schramm); to cite more prominent scholars (Chomsky rather than Jansen); and those with name recognition in their own discipline (in communication, Carey or Schramm rather than Blum or Riccio).

Assignment posting on "Alternative" Online Media

2008-03-19T12:17:00.008+01:00

Till today I did not now that the postings on the blog will be coded as 'discovery postings', 'substantive postings' and 'assignment postings' as part of the grading mechanism at the course New Media and Society. I have purposely left some of the latter out to save the comments, questions, critique for our weekly web-conferences - I am certain that some of the classmates did similarly. I have probably misunderstood the initial guidelines, therefore, I post some of the comments I planned to make last week and I intend to make tonight. It seems that in the core of this misunderstanding is a question of public and private.

----

Salter, L. (2006). Democracy & Online News: Indymedia and the limits of participatory media.
»We can consider media technologies and the uses of them through such a framework – they are democratic to the degree to which people can participate in the production process on their own terms.« (p. 1) This sentence is ideological and it is acctually expression of what Pickard identifies as radical democracy. What does it mean »on their own terms«?

The question I would like to rise in connection to Salter's article is: To what extent is the reproduction of the dichotomies between mainstream media and alternative media, mainstream news and alternative news legitimate and appropriate in academia? Aren’t these dichotomies simple ideological generalizations?

Pickard, V. W. (2006). Assessing the Radical Democracy of Indymedia: Discursive, Technical, and Institutional Constructions.
I have really enjoyed this article especially the part on the three tyrannies: the tyranny of structurelessness, the tyranny of ideology, the tyranny of the editor. This article is a great insight in the practice of IMCs and it delivers what it promises in the introduction: the illustration of how radical democratic principles are manifested across Indymedia practices, their advantages, lacks and paradoxes.

Herring, S. et al (2005). Conversations in the Blogosphere: An Analysis “From the Bottom Up”.
It is a strong article through the prism of research interest and conclusions as well. Mezhodology could be questionable in regard to research interest (communication between bloggers), because they started sampling with A-list blogs and then went on. It demystifies understandings of blogging as a democratizing force in public communication. This is reflected in the last sentence of the Discussion: “blog conversation appear to be a perceptually salient phenomenon.”

Guardian.co.uk: Top 50 Blogs

2008-03-19T08:12:00.004+01:00

It is not clear how the list of "World's 50 most powerful blogs", but here it is made by Guardian. It is a wide array of different themes, topis and approaches followed in these blogs, moreover, it is hard to find a pattern. Making a list of "most powerful blogs" is against the primary idea of blogs, blogging and blogosphere, because it opens the door to the notion of power and dividing inside "blogosphere" on the basis of it.

Citizen Journalism Debate

2008-03-15T00:38:00.002+01:00

On Guardian.co.uk I have found a debate on citizen journalism among leading industry figures and representatives of the blogging community on the citizen journalism phenomenon. The panel, chaired by Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the NUJ, includes: Carol Hall, Rights Manager, BBC News; Kyle McRae, Scoopt.com; Fiona Brownsell, CEO, Youview; Eddie Gibb, Head of External Relations, DEMOS; Bill Hagerty, Editor, British Journalism Review; Vicky Taylor, Editor, Interactive, BBC; Jemima Kiss and John Thompson journalism.co.uk; Simon Waldman, Guardian Unlimited. It is very interesting how the big players understand citizen journalism and blogging in changing media landscape. Do not miss it ...

Indymedia.org: nothing similar in Slovenia (yet)

2008-03-09T23:37:00.004+01:00

Before, during or after reading this weeks assigned texts (Salter, Pickard and Herring et al) check out Indymedia.org established in 1999 for the purpose of providing grassroots coverage of the World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle. The Independent Media Center is "a network of collectively run media outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth. We work out of a love and inspiration for people who continue to work for a better world, despite corporate media's distortions and unwillingness to cover the efforts to free humanity". In Slovenia nothing is happening in this direction this is very unfortunate from the point of journalism and news media research ...

YouTube: A Mirror?

2008-03-07T00:54:00.009+01:00

YouTube is really a fascinating online environment. I often use it for finding good interviews for my undergraduate students, searching for cartoons from my childhood, remembering great goals from the football history etc. However, through a specific prism YouTube is worrying ... I try to build this paradoxical prism of values by pasting links below. If we understand YouTube as a product or "a mirror" - as Andrew Keen would put it - of our political, economic and cultural system we should probably be very worried ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgru4doIm_k&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnzwgBrIr1s

David Domingo's PhD

2008-03-04T23:10:00.003+01:00

I have found David Domingo's (University of Iowa) doctoral disertation titled Inventing Online Journalism. He reviews the theoretical and empirical investigations of online journalism and analyzes three Catalan online newspapers. His approach is ethnographic. I haven't read it yet, but I plan to ... As soon as I do I will share my impressions.

Searching the Internet: Journalism on the Web

2008-03-03T00:17:00.000+01:00

On the basis of Guide to Effective Searching of the Internet prepared by Bright Planet and UC Berkeley library I have made a arbitrary list of free search engines (Yahoo!, Ask.com, Google, Google Scholar, and Msn.com) and conducted a search using a number of recommended procedures. My topic of interest was journalism on the web and I gradually narrowed the search:
- First, in scientific literature often used phrases such as “online journalism”, “web journalism”, “internet journalism”, “cyber-journalism” etc., therefore, I used the operator OR (“online journalism” OR “web journalism” OR “internet journalism” OR “cyber-journalism”).
- In the second step I narrowed the search on full scientific texts, therefore, I searched for pdf-files that are commonly used for documenting such literature (“online journalism” OR “web journalism” OR “internet journalism” OR “cyber-journalism” AND pdf).
- Third, because journalism on the web or online journalism to use the most common phrase is a broad subject I narrowed the interest to texts that deal with online journalism and changes of the newsroom by truncating words, using operator AND, and parentheses (“online journalism” OR “web journalism” OR “internet journalism” OR “cyber-journalism” AND pdf AND (chang* OR transform* newsroom*)).

Msn.com
1) First step search gave us over 1,760,000 results. First result was Journalism.co.uk, a site that deals with on a array of issues linked with journalism. The second result was a reperot of The project for Excellence in Journalism from 2006. Among top ten results were blogs dealing with online journalism, Wikipedia’s article dealing with the subject and sites of news organizations (i.e. Pbs.com).
2) The results and the number of them changed only slightly in regards to the first search. It did not offer a pdf-file in top results.
3) The results and the number of them changed only slightly in regards to the first and second search. Dominant results were blogs on online journalism, j-blogs and activist sites made by journalists.

Yahoo!
1) First step search gave us over 4,600,000 results. The first result was Online Journalism Review a site that evaluates happening in the field of online journalism and is sponsored by Yahoo!. The second result was Wikipedia’s article on the subject. The third result was Mark Deuze’s article Online Journalism: Modelling the First Generation of News Media on the World Wide Web from 2001 published in The First Monday. Journalism.co.uk, a site that deals with on a array of issues linked with journalism. The second result was a reperot of The project for Excellence in Journalism from 2006. Among top ten results were blogs dealing with online journalism and activist sites made by journalists.
2) The results changed and they were narrowed to 439,000. In the first ten results were among others a survey on the roles of journalists in online newsrooms conducted as part of the Project for Excellence in Journalism and a complete Handbook of Independent Journalism, written by Deborah Potter, the executive director of NewsLab.
3) The results changed and they were narrowed to 1,390. Among top results was a number of pdf-files on online journalism and changing newsrooms: for example a report from the symposium held at the University of Texas, articles from Nieman Reports, and reviews made by professionals from couple of news organizations. Among top results were some j-blogs and educational blogs.

Ask.com
1) The first search gave 11,190,000 results. Among top results were among others Online Journalism Review a site that evaluates happening in the field of online journalism, Poynter.org that “helps journalists do their jobs better and to serve their communities”, and Journalism.org that conducts the Project for Excellence in Journalism. Other top sites were blogs and sites dealing with online journalism.
2) The results and the number of them changed only slightly in regards to the first search. It did not offer a pdf-file in top results.
3) The results and the number of them changed only slightly in regards to the first and second search.

Google.com
1) The first search offered 595,000 results. Among top sites were almost exclusively collective sites and blogs made by journalists on the subject of online journalism (i.e. Journalism.org, Poynter.org, Journalism.co.uk).
2) The number of results narrowed to 56,000, but among top sites were almost exclusively collective sites and blogs made by journalists on the subject of online journalism. Less than a handful of pdf-files that could hardly be useful for serious insight into the matter of journalism on the web.
3) The number of results narrowed to thirty. Among top results still dominated blogs and collective sites made by journalists. Two of the results were interesting and worth checking them out: Nisar Keshvani’s PhD titled Integrated Newsroom, and article titled Interactive Options in Online Journalism: A Content Analysis of 100 U.S. Newspapers, written by Tanjev Schultz from the Institute for Intercultural and International Studies at the University of Bremen.

Scholar.google.com
1) The first search gave 2,370 results. You get an insight in what was written by the academia on the subject of journalism on the web, the most important authors, and issues regarding the matter. However, you are only offered abstracts of articles or first pages of related books, no full text documents were among top results. Therefore, the results could be used as guidelines for further search on literature databases (i.e. Routledge online and Sage online) through universities’ libraries or for buying books on online book stores.
2) The number of results fell to 1,500 and a number of complete texts were offered among top results as pdf-files on a number of issues of online journalism – however, there texts were merely research reports by more or less internationally unknown authors. Despite this the readings are interesting and could be worth checking out.
3) The third search narrowed the results to 19. Similarly to the second search the sites offered literature written by more or less internationally unknown authors concentrated on specific national contexts. Through this prism they could be worth checking out.

Nieman Reports: available online since 1998

2008-02-26T00:28:00.001+01:00

Now in its 60th year, Nieman Reports serves a unique role in the community of journalism publications. Journalists write stories out of experiences they've had in covering events and issues, and they write about newsroom issues common in the craft. Issues since 1998 are available here.

J. D. Lasica: website

2008-02-25T23:54:00.002+01:00

I have come across J.D. Lasica's website and I warmly recommend it. He is one of the world's leading authorities on social media and the revolution in user-created media. A writer, strategist, blogger and consultant, he is the co-founder and head of Ourmedia.org, president of the Social Media Group and a partner in Outhink, a company that enables social media and distributed video production. Especially worth checking out is a collection of his articles.

JournalismJobs.com: looking for a job in journalism?

2008-02-23T21:39:00.001+01:00

JournalismJobs.com was founded in August 1998 by Dan Rohn, a former copy editor and writer with The Washington Post and editor with America Online. JournalismJobs.com is the largest and most-visited resource for journalism jobs, and receives between 2.5 to 3 million page views a month.

IFJ Research Report: The Changing Nature of Work

2008-02-23T21:14:00.003+01:00

If you are interested in changing the nature of work in media in convergent environment, you would appreciate Interenational Federeation of Journalists research report: The Changing Nature of Work from 2006. It is a global survey and case study of atypical work in media industry conducted by people such as
Emma Walters, Christopher Warren and Mike Dobbie. It is worth checking it out ...

Alexa.com

2008-02-21T14:45:00.002+01:00

Alexa - the Web Information Company is a subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is best known for operating a website that provides information on web traffic to other websites. There is a lot of controversy over how representative Alexa's user base is of typical Internet behavior. Namely, Alexa ranks sites based on visits from users of its Alexa Toolbar for Internet Explorer and from integrated sidebars in Mozilla and Netscape. In addition to their own statusbar extension, Sparky (released July 2007), there are several third-party extensions for Mozilla Firefox.

Alexa is an useful tool to start your research of a particular site, however, the stats (i.e. reach, rank, page views) of the site you are interested in are focused only globally. You cannot get answer to the question for instance: what is a reach of 24ur.com in Slovenia. That is a shame ... Try it out.

Jay Rosen: "People who were formerly known as the audience"

2008-02-20T14:32:00.002+01:00

This is a short interview with Jay Rosen. He presents some of his reflections on journalism and media in convergent media environment. Enjoy ...

Jay Rosen and PressThink

2008-02-15T22:44:00.002+01:00

In 2003 Jay Rosen, associate professor at NYU, a respected scholar and author of the book What are Journalists For? (1999, sample chapter), started a blog titled PressThink: Ghost of Democracy in the Media Machine, the blog is about journalism and its ordeals. Two years later the blog won Reporters Without Borders Freedom Blog Award. It is worth checking it out ... A few sentences from the introduction to warm you up: "We need to keep the press from being absorbed into The Media. This means keeping the word press, which is antiquated. But included under its modern umbrella should be all who do the serious work in journalism, regardless of the technology used. The people who will invent the next press in America - and who are doing it now online - continue an experiment at least 250 years old."

E-interview: practice of irresponsible journalists

2008-02-10T13:43:00.000+01:00

In journalistic reporting theory e-interview or interview conducted via e-mail is regarded as an example of irresposible journalism that neglects several ground canons of normative journalism. Moreover, questions are risen if e-interview is an interview in traditional sense - it lacks the primary dialogue, time for interviewee's responses is longer, doubt that the responder is not the interviewee, to name just a few. However, it has an advance (in the eyes of lazy journalists) - typing the transcript is not a practice.

The last example of e-interview that went wrong happend this weekend in Croatia. On Saturday editor of daily Jutranji list Davor Butković published an interview with Croatian prime minister Ivo Sanader. Prime minister's PR office later that day reported that Sanader did not communicate with that journalist in the last couple of days and that the interview is a lie. Butković responded that he conducted an interview via e-mail and that probably something went wrong. On Sunday Jutranji list's competitor Vecernji list reported that the questions to the prime minister were answer by a 23-year-old, who called Vecernji list and said that he pulled a joke on Butković sending him a SMS for New Year's as Ivo Sanader and then just responding to Butković's proposal for an interview two months later.

Despite the fact that the Internet and the Web brought mechanisms changing news production process. On the basis of above example the "new" technological environment is not a priori positive or negative, but it seems that it accelerates deepening the crisis of the journalistic profession in the context of institutionalisation of journalism as part of political, economic and cultural system.

Microjournalism?

2008-02-10T13:21:00.000+01:00

Journalists are increasingly finding new ways to use Twitter. The microblogging application is now used by some online journalists in the American campaign trail. Cyberjournalist.net points out John Dickerson, who worked for years at Time magazine, and has moved from print to online articles to blog entries to text messages no longer than 140 characters, or about two sentences. “One of the things we are supposed to do as journalists is take people where they can’t go,” he said in an interview for the New York Times. “It is much more authentic, because it really is from inside the room.” Is "microjournalism" another example of convergent journalism and maybe a future form of providing breaking news?

News + Games = Newsgaming.com

2008-02-04T21:29:00.000+01:00

In online news industry interactive graphics have become a viable way to explain reported events and contextualize issues, while several game developers, explains Deuze (2007: 152-153), produce games that reflect "real" events using elements of journalistic practice to (in)form their design. Such example is Newsgaming.com where you can play games related to New York and Madrid terrorist attacks. At this Uruguay-based game studio (Powerful Robot) they use the word newsgaming "for describing a genre that is currently emerging: videogames based on news events. Traditionally, videogames have focused on fantasy rather than reality, but we believe that they can be a great tool for better understanding our world. Since newsgaming is so new, it has to find a voice of its own. Therefore, most of our games will be in part experimental".

Reference:
Deuze, Marc (2007): Media Work in a Digital Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Bill Gates's Children and Computers

2008-02-03T14:49:00.000+01:00

A year ago Reuters reported that Bill Gates limits access to compter and internet to his daughter and son. Read about it on The Inquirer. This fact spots an interesting light on the issue of children and digital divide - one of the issues of Wednesday's meeting.

MIT Communications Forum Website: The Treasure of Discussions on Emerging Technologies

2008-01-31T12:57:00.000+01:00

Check it out if you were not there. This website is the online record of the activities of the MIT Communications Forum.

For more than twenty-five years the Communications Forum has played a unique role at MIT and beyond as a site for cutting-edge discussion of the cultural, political, economic and technological impact of communications, with special emphasis on emerging technologies.

Leading scholars, journalists, media producers, political figures and corporate executives have appeared at conferences and panels sponsored by the Forum.

On the website you can find papers and abstracts of an array of respected people in the field. Enjoy it.

New Technology and News Flows: Journalism and Crisis

2008-01-30T19:38:00.000+01:00

Check out John Pavlik's paper from 2002 titled New Technology and News Flows: Journalism and Crisis Coverage that examines the role of new and emerging information technologies in the distribution of news and information during moments of crisis, with a particular focus on the U.S. and North America since September 11, 2001. Among the technologies examined are satellite communications and remote sensing, wireless Internet communications and mobile information acquisition devices.

Be a victim of a serial killer and commercial imperative

2008-01-24T12:22:00.000+01:00

Check out this website, where you can send your friend a personalized "journalistic report" that s/he was a victim of a serial killer. The site was set by the producers of American series Dexter. It is funny, however, it is a sneaky way to get personal data, e-mail and occupation of people and exploit this information in commercial matter for instance. Maybe this could also be an issue discussed at today's meeting ...

Thoughts before today's meeting ...

2008-01-24T11:08:00.000+01:00

What are the key conceptual issues related to the emergence of digital media and digital communications?
Key conceptual issues related to the emergence of digital media and digital communications are: digitalization and information society; interactivity and convergence; (virtual) community; identity; technology and context; politics, policy and regulation; public discourse; commerce and industry; education. However, these conceptual issues are interrelated and each of them can hardly be studied separately.

What theoretical concerns and kinds of research questions are posted about digital media developments from different disciplines?
The common ground of these issues in different disciplines is ethics. The question is how we should approach ethics related to the emergence of digital media and digital communications. I am especially interested in this issue in the context of producing content, more precisely, news production. I have been reading a book Online Journalism Ethics that is based on consolidated normative framework of »offline« journalism and taken into the context of cultural transformation of journalism (as a »profession« and as a »activity«) on the Web.

How do (some of) these notions (concerns about power relations, distribution of resources, human development and learning, creative expression, political life and organization) find expression in the study of digital media and communication?
These notions find expression inside key conceptual issues related to emergence of digital media and digital communications which are accordant with the chapters of the textbook and should be in this regard approached, studied and researched separately.

Blogs on Online Journalism

2008-01-22T09:35:00.001+01:00

Check out two of the blogs dealing with online journalism.

Online Journalism Blog: it publishes comment, analysis and links covering online journalism and online news, citizen journalism, blogging, vlogging, photoblogging, podcasts, vodcasts, interactive storytelling, publishing, Computer Assisted Reporting, User Generated Content, searching and all things internet.

Journalism Enterprise: the site is the sister site of the blog mentioned above and it reviews websites that are attempting to make money from journalism in the new media age. That may be a mainstream organisation launching a new media spin-off, an internet startup looking to make millions, a non-profit news venture, or an entrepreneur setting up a solo project.

Online Journalism Review

2008-01-22T08:14:00.001+01:00

If your are an online journalist or just interested in journlaism you should visit USC Annenberg Online journalism Review edited by Robert Niles. Interesting insights ...

Dan Gillmor and We Media

2008-01-16T14:05:00.000+01:00

Below you can enjoy Dan Gillmor's lecture titled "We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People". In 2004 Gillmor published a book with the same title, chronicling how the Internet is helping independent journalists combat the consolidation of traditional media. He is a director of Center for Citizen Media - check out its website, you will find some interesting content there. For those of you who do not know Gillmor check out his homepage and his blog.

Message of the Medium: Journalism of the Web and Determinism of Technological Determinism

2008-01-14T12:42:00.000+01:00

When a new technological medium enters the world, we tend to think the world of it.
Arvind Rajagopal

“Better” technology does not automatically lead to “better” journalism.
Peter Dahlgren

“Medium is the message.” The idea of this sentence and other insights of its author have implicitly and explicitly entered the debates in the second half of the nineties in journalism studies: as utopia and as dystopia. On one hand, the Web was considered as a hope for ending the crisis of professional traditional journalism and the utopian phrases referred to journalism on the Web as “the revolution” (Stephens, 1998), “the future of journalism” (Newhagen and Levy, 1998; Pavlik, 1999; Singer, 1997), “the age of the net” (Heinonen, 1999; Hibbert, 1998; Kimber, 1997), “a whole new journalism” (Quittner, 1995). On the other hand, in the dystopian view the Web was simultaneously viewed as a threat to professional journalism and to the journalist as a traditional gate-keeper (cf. Dahlgren, 1996; Deuze, 2002; Kawamoto, 2003; Salwen, 2005). These opponent examples of hard technological determinism were raised despite the fact that journalism history acknowledges technology as to shaping journalism in, what Raymond Williams (cf. 1974/2005) calls “the long revolution”.

Departures from these naïve expectations in contemporary research (cf. Deuze, 2004, 2005; Singer, 2006; Dahlgren, forthcoming) are not signs that the Web does not revitalize journalism and democratize the public debate, but are signs that “the medium and its analysis are maturing” (Benkler, 2006: 215). The contemporary journalism studies therefore reject the ideas that the technology exclusively controls journalistic work, content of news, organization of the newsroom and the relationships between journalistic subjects and other hard deterministic explanations at the expense of a much broader cultural perspective on the relations of technology and journalism (cf. Hardt, 2004: 9). But still, soft technological determinism is very much present in the conquest for “better” journalism and is reflected in a number of normative models: “interactive journalism”, “citizen journalism”, “participatory journalism”, “second phase of public journalism” (cf. Nip, 2006). On the other hand, for instance the relationship between professional journalism versus blogging, wikinews and indymedia is understood as a dimishing of the former and the genesis of new forms of journalism: “black market journalism” (Wall, 2004), “personal journalism” (Allan, 2002), “amateur journalism” (Lasica, 2002), “interactive grassroots journalism” (Aufderheide, 2004).

Regardless to more extensive blurring of the lines between journalism and non-journalism in cyberspace than in mass media (cf. Splichal, 2000) even soft technological determinism cannot be generalized. There is a diversity of factors that shape journalism: professional culture, political pressures, economic pressures, pressures of sources of information and technological framework (cf. McNair, 1998; Boczkowski and Ferris, 2005, Quandt et al, 2006), therefore, the new technologies result in a complexity and heterogeneity of adaptability. “[T]he Internet does not simply move in and redefine the way everything works; it is largely assimilated via the already existing local and national traditions within journalism” (Dahlgren, forthcoming). In addition, Klinenber (2005) argues that journalism’s entering on the Web resulted not in gradual transformation of market-driven journalism and its discourse (cf. McManus, 1994), on the contrary, the goals of productivity, efficiency and profitability pushed traditional journalistic values even further to the margins. The Web as a journalistic environment is, in Resnick’s (cf. 1998) terms, “normalizing”. In this context the concept of the “networked public sphere” (cf. Benkler, 2006) can be regarded only as an ideal-typical notion, moreover, Thompson’s (cf. 1995) notion of the “mediatized public sphere” should not be forgotten.

The example of journalism on the Web confirms that technological determinism “is a reductionist reading of the contemporary or future world” (Burnett and Marshall, 2003: 11). However, the works of McLuhan, Innis, Mumford and other labeled technological determinists should not be neglected, in the context of interest the objective should be to highlight their utility by isolating on what their theoretical insights have provided in their work. In addition, technological determinism is in the core of the perennial debate in social sciences between those who emphasize structure and those who emphasize agency. This short text is not the place to attempt to close and overcome such a debate and division, it is rather an opportunity to ask the reader to keep the alternative viewpoints in mind while reading further texts on journalism of the Web. Determinism of technological determinism is the message of the medium.

Igor Vobič, Ljubljana, 2008

References
- Allan, Stuart (2002). Reweaving the Internet: Online news of September 11, pp. 119–40. In: Bardie Zelizer, Stuart Allan (Ed.): Journalism after September 11. London, New York: Routledge.
- Aufderheide, Patricia (2004). Big media and little media: the journalistic informal sector during the invasion of Iraq, pp. 333–46. In: Stuart Allan, Barbie Zelizer (Ed.): Reporting War: Journalism in Wartime. London and New York: Rotledge.
- Benkler, Yochai (2006). The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven, London: Yale University Press.
- Boczkowski, Pablo J., José A. Ferris (2005). Multiple Media, Convergent Processes, and Divergent Products: Organizational Innovation in Digital Media Production at a European Firm. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 597 (1): 32–47.
- Burnett, Robert, David P. Marshall (2003): Web.Theory: an introduction. London, New York: Routledge.
- Dahlgren, Peter (1996). Media Logic in Cyberspace: Repositioning of Journalism and Its Public, Javnost/The Public 3 (3): 59–72.
- Dahlgren, Peter (forthcoming) Media and Political Engagement: Citizens, Communication and Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Deuze, Marc (2002): Online Journalism: Modeling the First Generation of News Media on the Web. First Monday 6 (10); http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue6_10/deuze;. 12 January, 2008.
- Deuze, Mark (2004). What is multimedia journalism? Journalism Studies, 5 (2): 139–152.
- Deuze, Mark (2005). What is journalism? Professional identity and ideology of journalists reconsidered. Journalism, 6 (4): 442–464.
- Heinonen, Ari (1999). Journalism in the Age of the Net. Changing Society, changing profesion. Tampere: University of Tampere.
- Hibbert, Bill (1998). Publishing and the Media Industries in the Digital Age. The Journal of Policy, Regulation and Strategy for Telecommunications, Information and Media 1: 393–403.
- Kawamoto, Kevin (2003) Digital Journalism: Emerging Media and the Changing Horizons of Journalism, pp. 1–31. In: Kevin Kawamoto (Ed.): Digital Journalism. Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers.
- Kimber, Stephen (1997). The Message is (Still) the Medium: the newspaper in the age of cyberspace. Information Processing & Management 33: 595–597.
- Klinenberg, Eric (2005). Covergence: News Production in The Digital Age. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 597 (1): 48-64.
- McManus, John H. (1994). Market-driven Journalism: Let the Citizen Beware. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
- McNair, Brian (1998): Sociology of News. London: Arnold.
- Newhagen, John E., Mark R. Levy (1998). The Future of Journalism in a Distributed Communication, pp. 9–21. In: D. L. Borden, K Harvey (Eds.): The Elctronic Grapevine: rumor, reputation and reporting in the new online environment. Manwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
- Nip, Joyce (2006). Exploring the Second Phase of Public Journalism. Journalism Studies, 7 (2): 212–236.
- Pavlik, John V. (1999). New Media and News: implications for future of journalism. New Media & Society 1: 54–69.
- Rajagopal, Arvind (2006). Imperceptible Perceptions in Our Technological Modernity, pp. 277–286. In: Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Thomas Keenan (Eds.): New Media, Old Media. New York, London: Routledge.
- Resnick, David (1998). Politics on the Internet: the Normalization and the Public Sphere, pp. 48–68. In: C. Touluse, W. T. Luke (Ed.): The Politics of Cyberspace. London: Routledge.
- Quandt, Thorsten, Martin Löffelholz, David H. Weaver, Thomas Hanitzsch, Klaus-Dieter Altmeppen (2006). American and German Online Journalists at the Beginning of 21st Century. Journalism Studies 7 (2): 171–186.
- Quittner, Joshua (1995). The Birth of Way New Journalism. HotWired, http://hotwired.lycos.com/i-agent/95/29/waynew/waynew.html, 12 December 2006.
- Salwen, Michael B. (2005) Online News Trends, pp. 47–80. In: Michael B. Salwen, Bruse Garrison, Paul D. Driscoll (Ed.): Online News and the Public. Mahwah, New Jersey, London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- Singer, Jane B. (1997). Changes and Consistences: newspaper journalists contemplate online future. Newspaper research journal 18: 2–18.
- Singer, Jane B. (2006). Partnerships and Public Service: Normative Issues for Journalists in Converged Newsrooms. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 21 (1): 30–53.
- Splichal, Slavko (2000). Novinarji in novinarstvo, pp. 47–56. In: Slavko Splichal (Ed.): Vregov zbornik. Ljubljana: Evropski inštitut za komuniciranje in kulturo in FDV.
- Stephens, Mitchell (1998). Which Communication Revolution Is It, Anyway? Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 75: 9–13.
- Thompson, John (1995). The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of Media. Cambridge: Polity Press.
- Wall, Melissa (2004) Blogs as black market journalism: A new paradigm for news, Interface: The Journal of Education, Community and Values, http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2004/02/wall.php, 12 January, 2008.
- Williams, Raymond (1974/2005). Television: Technology and Cultural form. New York: Routledge.

We do not need just three keys

2008-01-10T17:13:00.000+01:00

This is CNN's step aside from their advertisment "You need just three keys: CNN" ... It is an interview with our old friend Andrew Keen and Tyler Brule on the topic of the effect that user generated content is having throughout journalism. Enjoy ...

Is "our" Understanding of McLuhan a Cliché?

2008-01-09T13:33:00.000+01:00

Here is a famous scene from Woody Allen's movie Annie Hall. Is McLuhan a cliché?

Blogging Heroes

2008-01-02T16:03:00.000+01:00

For Christmas I bought myself a new Michael A. Banks book Blogging Heroes. It contains interviews with 30 of "the World's Top Bloggers". How was the list made? "I looked around at who was doing what in the blogosphere. I cosulted the Technorati lists, Digg, Alexa and other resources to get an idea of which blogs were really popular, and which may have simply gamed the system to get on the list. / Sifting through the more active and popular blogs, I came up with a list of itneresting blogs in several categories. I read the blogs to get an idea of each blogger's style and background. I alos looked for buzz about othe popular bloggers and their blogs. Links from some of the blogs I was reading pointed to additional candidates for interviews. Still more were suggested by my editors and the interviewees themselves." (Banks, 2008: xii) Is this the methodology to get to the list of the "World's Top Bloggers"? Probably not - it is confusing and arbitrary ...

However, it is an interesting reading, because it gives you an insight into a broad palette of opinions on blogging, journalism, advertising and internet. I recomend it ...

ICTs and Society: The Slazburg Approach

2007-12-24T16:27:00.000+01:00

Today I have been inform to pay attention to the research paper ICTs and Society: The Salzburg Approach. I have not read it yet, but the abstract was interesting enough to share this with you. I would be grateful for some comments ...

Abstract
There is an international debate revolving around the question whether or not the field of overlapping studies and research in Internet, Information Society, ICTs and Society, Social Informatics, Informatik und Gesellschaft, New Media, and the like, is or shall become a discipline. The answer the authors of this paper intend to give is that the best option for research in ICTs and society is to become a “transdiscipline”. The paper will explain how the term “transdiscipline” can be used to characterise a field shaped to meet what the authors think contemporary society is in need of. Aims, scope, and tools of ICTs and society research will be elaborated on. This paper is a revised version of a paper three of us presented at the IR 7.0: Internet Convergences, a conference held by the Association of Internet Researchers in Brisbane, Australia, in September 2006.

The Year of Them

2007-12-23T23:43:00.000+01:00

It has been a year since Time named You Person of the Year. In last issue James Poniewozik published an essay titled The Year of Them. He stresses that They run the show. "But who made the big noise in Web 2.0 world this year? It was Them. The professionals, the old-media people, the moneymen - all of them, conscious that there was profit in Your little labor-of-love socialist paradise. Story of Your life, right?"

Pew Internet

2007-12-21T17:18:00.000+01:00

Check out Pew Internet & American Life Project. It produces reports that explore the impact of the internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life. The Project aims to be an authoritative source on the evolution of the internet through collection of data and analysis of real-world developments as they affect the virtual world.

Internet Famous

2007-12-21T16:47:00.000+01:00

I was checking out Time.com and came accross the article titled Googling for Your Grade. At Parsons The New School for Design in New York City 15 students have an assignment to become famous in the virtual world, therefore, a piece of scouring software, and not their teacher, will be giving them grades. Check out there blog: Internet Famous. What do you think about the assignment?

Mac vs. PC

2007-12-18T00:42:00.000+01:00

Who is jealous here?

Debating Information Society and the Context

2007-12-10T16:40:00.000+01:00

When debating “information society”, “information revolution”, “information explosion”, “information overload” and other related notions the question what is information is basic. What is the relationship between information and meaning? What is the relationship between meaning and sign? What is the relationship between sign and word? These questions are neglected by Manchlup’s and Porat’s a decades old narrow “economic” understanding of information: “Both view information as a commodity made up of goods and services that have costs as they are created and that can be bought and sold.” (Crawford, 1983: 382) The goal of their economic analysis was not just to measure the trends of “information society”, but to use national income accounts to explain the causes of these trends. In recent cultural and historical context these analysis are not suitable due to the inability to differ “information sector” and “other economic sectors”.
Their often criticized and at the same time praised work was the groundwork for Ithiel de Sola Pool 1983 article Tracking the Flow of Information in which he approached “informational society” on micro-level through the prism of “all flows of information” simply translated in the unit of words (Pool, 1983/1998: 251–253). By using words transmitted and words attended to as common denominators, novel indexes were constructed of growth trends in seventeen major communications media from 1960 to 1977. In that period there have been extraordinary rates of growth in the transmission of electronic communications, but much lower rates of growth in the material that people actually consume, representing the phenomenon often labeled information overload (Pool, 1983/1998: 249). In methodologically dubious and historical context reflecting Pool’s article does not include changes in flow of information, which were anticipated by Pool as well (1983/1998: 261).
Crawford (1983: 384) and Pool (1983/1998: 261) concluded in similar fashion that “the new information technologies” and “new styles of use of information media, including interactive retrieval, long-distance communication, and intelligent processing of records” will be taken into consideration in future discussions of information society, media consumption/production, media literacy, transformations of the information flow and power relations in author-text-audience relationship in the years to come – especially in the context of the historical evolution of the internet (cf. Leiner et al, 2003).

Igor Vobič, 2007

References
- Crawford, S. (1983). The origin and development of a concept: the information society. Bull Med Libr Assoc. October; 71(4): 380–385. Available at: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=227258&pageindex=5#page, December 10, 2007.
- Leiner, B. M. et al. (2003). A Brief History of the Internet. Version 3.32Last revised 10 Dec 2003. Available at: http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml, December 10, 2007.
- Pool, Ithiel de Sola (1983/1998). Tracking the Flow of Information. Politics in Wired Nations, 249–262. New Burnswick, London: Transaction Publishers.

The Internet and the Right to Communicate

2007-12-07T21:11:00.000+01:00

The development of the Internet challenges traditional conceptions of information rights. The discourse surrounding these rights and the Internet typically deals with each right in isolation and attempt to adapt long established understandings of each right to the new technological environment. We contend there is a need to address information rights within a comprehensive human rights framework, specifically, a right to communicate. This article published in First Monday in 2003 examines the development of a right to communicate and how it can be defined and implemented. Maybe you will find it useful.

Did Somebody Say Interactivity?

2007-12-05T20:03:00.000+01:00

The title of this post is a paraphrase of Slavoj Žižek’s book Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? in which he argues that totalitarianism “is a kind of stopgap: instead of enabling us to think, forcing us to acquire a new insight into historical reality it describes, it revelas us of the duty to think, or even actively prevents us from thinking.” (Žižek, 2001: 3) In Rob Crover’s (2006) article, in which he demystifies interactivity as an exclusive and natural characteristic of “new media”, interactivity can be regarded as a kind of a stopgap. This can especially be attributed when Crover (2006: 145) debates the author-text-audience relationship in the context of “mainstream” online media (CNN.com) and “alternative” online media (indymedia.com). Crover (ibid.) characterizes this “dichotomy” as a struggle between corporate media industries and consumer-users, between author and audience.
Crover (ibid.) universalizes connotative message of CNN.com’s advertisment “We say, you need only three keys – CNN” on all “mass news media”: “The implication of CNN’s reduction to needing only three keys is that news and information creation is, and should be, in the hands of a media industry and its authors, journalists or content-creators” (ibid.) However, contemporary research indicates that journalism is in the process of rethinking and reinventing itself online. Journalists are drawn into new “permitted” forms of interactive practices (i. e. “normalization” of blogging in “mainstream” journalism) that are gaining legitimacy and thereby altering some traditional notions how journalism should be done (i. e. reshaping their gatekeeping role) (Singer, 2006; Robinson, 2006; Deuze, Bruns and Neuberger, 2007).
On the other hand, Crover (2006: 145) stresses that independent internet media or Indymedia “in both structural terms and intent allows content-creation, right for reply and redefinition, debate and discussion to be held by general user – indeed, its moto is “Everyone’s a journalist”. However, contemporary research proves that production process in Indymedia outlines the corporate editorship. “Indymedia editorial teams often face the same problems as the ones faced by corporate news media, the ways of solving such problems by Indymedia activists are based on a radically different interpretation of journalistic ideology.” (Deuze, 2003: 336)
When debating over re-transformations of author-text-audience relationship in journalism the complexity of theoretical underpinnings of interactivity, presented by Cover (2006), should be taken into consideration. The last sentence of Barthes’ (1972/1977: 148) essay The Death of the Author is in this “new” context at least interesting: “[W]e know that to give writing its future, it is necessary to overthrow the myth: the birth of the Reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.”

Igor Vobič, 2007

References
- Barthes, R. (1972/1977). The Death of the Author. Image-Music-Text, 142–148 New York: Hill & Wang.
- Cover, R. (2004). Audience inter/active: Interactive media, narrative control and reconceiving audience history. New Media & Society, 8(1): 139–158.
- Deuze, M. (2003). Indymedia Journalism. Journalism, 4 (3): 336–355.
- Deuze, M., Burns, A., Neuberger, C. (2007). Preparing for an Age of Participatory News. Journalism Practice 1 (3): 322–338.
- Robinson, S. (2006). The Mission of the j-blog: Recapturing Journalistic Authority Online. Journalism, 7 (1): 65–83.
- Žižek, S. (2001). Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? London: Verso.

What Is Not Internet Studies?

2007-12-05T15:46:00.001+01:00

David Silver (2006) and David Gauntlett (2004) have different understandings of the status of “internet studies” and “web studies” as a part of social sciences. When discussing rapid approach of “internet studies” toward disciplinary status Silver (2006: 2) epistemologically leans on cultural studies. He acknowledges that this “young field of studies” is “under construction – with boundaries not yet set, with borders not yet fully erected, and with a canon not yet established” (Silver, 2006: 5). On the other, Guantlett (2004) argues that “new media offered much-needed kick to the world of media and communication studies, therefore, he positions “web studies” only “inside” media and communication studies. Both understandings are questionable and rather exclusive. Silver’s mapping of a special academic field implicitly contains the distinction between “life on line” and “real life”, however, the internet has become institutionally so integrated with processes and relations in political, economic and cultural system that the sense of its separatness, in regard we “normally” get things done, has in some way dissipated. Regarding this conception, Guantlett exclusive interlinking “web studies” with media and communication studies is rather surprising, because the research concerning internet is pouring in from a broad array of disciplines – the field of media and communication on its own cannot find all important questions that need to be addressed and the various ways to approach them. The cyberspace is a fluid phenomena which is being imbued with political, economic and cultural system and, therefore, has to be studied from different standpoints and with different approaches. The internet has lost its “newness” and “innocence”. Resnick (1998) in this regard acknowledges “the normalization of cyberspace” and imposes re-consideration of Foucault’s (1979: 184) notion of the Normal: “[T]he power of normalization imposes homogeneity; but it individualizes by making it possible to measure gaps, to determine levels, to fix specialities and to render the differences useful by fitting them one to another.”

Igor Vobič, 2007

References
- Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Alan Sheridan, trans. New York: Vintage.
- Gauntlett, D. (2004). Introduction. D. Gauntlett, R. Horsley: Web.Studies, 2nd Edition. London: Hodder Arnold.
- Resnick, D. (1998). Politics on the Internet: the Normalization and the Public Sphere. C. Touluse, W. T. Luke (Ed.): The Politics of Cyberspace, 48–68. London: Routledge.
- Silver, D. (2006). Introduction: Where is Internet Studies? Critical Cyberculture Studies, 1-14. New York: New York University Press.

Mark Deuze: Interview

2007-12-04T09:34:00.000+01:00

Mark Deuze holds a joint appointment at Indiana University's Department of Telecommunications in Bloomington, United States, and as Professor of Journalism and New Media at Leiden University, The Netherlands. In this interview he talks about themes from his sold-out book Media Work (2007).

Internet World Stats

2007-12-02T17:49:00.000+01:00

I would like to attract attention to website Internet World Stats. It is an international website featuring up to date world internet usage, population statistics and internet market research data, for over 233 individual countries and world regions. I hope you will find it useful ...

The State of News Media

2007-12-01T13:17:00.000+01:00

As a part of the Project for Excellence in Journalism the annual report on American journalism The State of News Media gathers in one place as much data as possible about all the major sectors of journalism, identifies trends, marks key indicators, note areas for further inquiry and provides a resource for citizens, journalists, and researchers. Maybe some of you will find some interesting data concernig your seminar paper ...

Why New Media & Society?

2007-11-28T16:57:00.000+01:00

I have chosen the seminar New Media & Society because my basic research interest is online journalism - its theoretical and methodological issues.

I am interested in locating online journalism in the context of contemporary developments in communications and to set online journalism in the broader frame of historical evolution of journalism.

Some of the theoretical issues to be considered through the prism of cyberspace include:
- questioning a definition of journalism and a journalist,
- reflecting the crisis of journalism and revisiting its normative framework,
- reconsidering contemporary concepts in journalism studies (i. e. public journalism),
- re-establishing journalistic communication process,
- reasoning the transformation of the public sphere in the online environments,
- questioning the relationship between technology and cultural transformations of journalism.

Another dimension to be considered involves methodological issues and developments related to conducting empirical study. Practices and circumstances of online journalism need to be studied both on the institutional level as well as on the level of daily practices.

My personal objective with regard to this seminar is strengthening my methodological and theoretical knowledge regarding new media, cyberspace, online environments and online journalism, my idea of the seminar paper is (at this point) focused on conducting a qualitative research project of Slovenian leading online newspapers through the prism of online media logic.

See you on Friday ...