In a Few Words? The Future is Grim…
“The New Media Landscape: What Should We Be Most Concerned About?” featuring Robert McChesney, Ken Auletta, Daniel Solove and Jonathan Zittrain.
Robert McChesney
In this day of 24-hour news outlets and the World Wide Web, I am not entirely sure what is newsworthy anymore. I’m worried that our society is getting to a point where we don’t even know what news is at all, and we are simply entertaining ourselves. We take more interest in trivial matters than vital ones, and the news will only become more diluted as online advertisers throw more money at news sites. We don’t just read up on the news once a day, many of us do it once an hour. Ad dollars recognize this, and content producers are looking for more ways to fill their sites. So, they distract our time with stories concerning a phantom hot air balloon boy and Alex Rodriguez’ likeness as a centaur.
In the future, we will lose complete site of what quality journalism is. We will no longer be able to judge credibility and caliber. We will automatically put our trust in the first source we read, unfortunately many of these first reads will be hosted on WordPress and Blogger accounts and not the New York Times and BBC.
People’s perception of reality will be altered mightily, as so much information is being delivered to us at one time, we take what we want to understand and disregard the matters we find difficult to comprehend (often the more complicated and important issues).
I am worried that “citizen journalists”, someone who has little to no formal training and doesn’t abide by a code of ethics, is replacing a traditional and respectable journalist’s job. Worse, this citizen journalist is simply reporting news as a hobby, and doesn’t invest enough time and interest in important matters.
We need to apply traditional media values when producing content in new media. We have lost site of that.
Daniel Solove
One of the biggest concerns the Internet is confronted by today is the issue of security and privacy as it relates to our online reputations. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a quick fix for this as the ubiquity of the Internet is much too powerful and influential.
It is important that we manage our online reputations the same way we manage our daily lives. The Internet moves too fast for any one individual to keep up, and the importance of prevention is less painstaking then doing a PR trick down the road. News and information spreads like wildfire on the Internet, prominent PR agencies even find it too difficult to perform damage control when a client is defaced or exploited on the Web (Tiger Woods).
What people love most about the Internet is the anonymity it provides. This luxury has become and will continue to be our own worst enemy if we do not conduct ourselves responsibly. Many individuals are contributors on social networks and blogs. They choose to put themselves out there. Once their information is given to someone, it only takes one click of the mouse to send it to everyone.
Once on the Web, always on the Web. We can’t bury news that happened ten years ago. The Internet may allow us to forgive, but it doesn’t let us forget. We need to keep this in mind when educating the youth on Internet practice. Some outlandish thing a child might have published on his blog in high school can still be found twenty years later when he is applying for a job. Is it fair to let this instance effect his standing in society? Probably not, but that’s the way it is.
With great power comes great responsibility. The Internet gives regular citizens extraordinary power. It is time for us to assume the responsibility that accompanies it.
Ken Auletta
Google strives to be the best at everything, and for the most part they have achieved their goals. However, I am concerned that they are taking on too many projects, and these projects are being done a little too well. They have mastered the art of the search engine to filter out any unwanted information and given us the best search results. They have conquered the ad revenue industry by creating adsense, and they have just released Google Buzz (social networking platform) and Google Chrome (a Web browser).
Is Google trying to take on too much? They are building a global empire on the Internet, and I don’t think that many people have recognized that their lives are molded by what Google does.
We don’t necessarily need to be fearing Google, but what need to be aware of what they are doing. When I open the email my dad sent me regarding the US Open golf tournament, I see several ads appear on the sidebar trying to sell me golf clubs. Has this become an invasion of privacy? I don’t know what the next step will be. My worry is that Google will be leveraging its users for financial gain, and will not regard the privacy and intergrity of the people. There “Don’t Be Evil” slogan is a nice PR tagline, something Apple and Steve Jobs can relate to.
Jonathan Zittrain
The Internet is a great tool for collaboration and contribution. The generative tools new media provides are most excellent for society. My main concern is that we are losing site of this, and that non-generative products are dominating the market, such as the iPod. We can play music on an iPod, and even a few of them play videos, but we can’t get all that creative with it. The same goes for a Kindle, we can read books on it (yay!).
What we need are more tools that allow for building ideas in creative ways. Wikipedia is a sensational example of a generative tool: it is ever-changing and although it doesn’t allow us to be all that creative as the site is built on mostly* facts, we can still alter other people’s works to phrase them more academically, making them more credible.
As a society, we can’t allow ourselves to hang our hats on someone else’s ideas and say that’s the end of it, because it’s not. We need to be asking ourselves how we can be making these tools better, and utilize all the ways in which we can use them.
I believe that because the Internet is a global phenomenon there will be greater developments toward the use of generative tools. We need to preach the importance of creativity as it relates to collaboration, not domination.
McChesney Critique
Although McChesney is long-winded at times, I tend to agree with his outlook that journalism is being subject to market pressures. Some would argue that the public is better informed due to online news media outlets and their ability to update news completely. It is probably easier for a local newspaper to get away with this as they can report on petty crimes and new zoning laws, but on a national or even global level it is hard to argue in favor of sites like CNN and FOX reporting on news that matters.
It seems to be a classic case of the agenda setters getting what they want, only this time the setters aren’t the Rupert Murdoch’s of the world. Instead, it is the ad dollars that are indirectly influencing the news that we want reported. We would rather hear about celebrity scandals than political scandals.
Stories get lost in the mix and reporters are forced to distribute their attention when writing stories because the public always wants more. Just because we are getting more coverage, doesn’t mean we are getting more news. What it means is that we are getting more “crap”, and I think McChesney would agree with this.
I am a bit torn on the subject of citizen journalism; I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing for news. Ideally, news is to be unbiased. This is fine and it’s good to get the facts, but people are going to form their own opinion based on the facts anyway. In some cases, are own opinion could reflect a story in a way that is unfair. If citizen journalism is bias then at least we can hear at least one side of a story. It’s almost as if you’re a juror in a trial case. You can hear one opinion, then a second, and ultimately you can decide which one is more appropriate. It creates more thought, and eliminates a top-down model of reporting. Conversation is always better.
There is so much discussion about how an outlet can reach an audience, questions arise about what they want and where they can be reached, whether it be through a wired device or otherwise. Unfortunately this is a priority for news media, and the news itself is taking a back seat.
Solove Critique
On pages 190-191 Solove talks a lot about the expectations of privacy and confidentiality on the Internet; suggesting there should be some sort of legal standard to be upheld. Yes, in an ideal world there would be many regulations against the unwanted spreading of information, but right now it just isn’t feasible.
Like he mentions earlier with cyber-bullying, much of it remains anonymous, so how would we be able to enforce these laws and whom are we enforcing them against?
Another issue is determining where these potential crimes are even taking place. If I am tarnishing the reputation of someone in Canada and I am in the U.S., then what law am I breaking, Canadian or American? To get people to follow one set of Internet laws on a global level isn’t likely to happen.
Perhaps the biggest issue Solove addresses is privacy. On the Internet, privacy is such a broad term that can’t be taken lightly. Solove discuses that privacy lurks in the background, and is to be acknowledge by citizens. On the Internet, there are social norms that breach this code, and who are we to say as an offline society what is acceptable in the virtual worlds?
I really like Solove’s points that the Internet just isn’t the real world, and can’t be lawfully or ethically treated in the same way we conduct our everyday lives. If I am acting like a drunken buffoon at a party, people will laugh about it the next day then move on. If I go on some idiotic rant on my blog (more than likely), twenty years from now people can easily trace it back to me and my reputation, in their eyes, can be altered greatly. The Internet doesn’t recognize time, place, or context, it simply displays the content hosted on it.
