So to finish off this 2 piece extravaganza, well not extravaganza exactly, more series of recaps, I would like to discuss what my experience of the Lecture 2 was like. Lecture 2 was an interesting lecture, throwing us into the deep end of Journalism by introducing us to the future of Journalism and the news. The topic in question was New News, with the main point of discussion revolving around the possible avenues that News will take in the future and what we, as journalism students can look forward to as the possible environment we could all be working in eventually.
Briefly though, the topic of old news was discussed. For the unenlightened among us, old news generally refers to three prominent forms of news media, newspaper, television and radio, with magazines in my opinion be grouped with other text based forms of news. I find it kind of strange referring to these things as old news, I mean there are still some people alive who were born before television, though compared to the various forms of media available today, it is basically a grandparent/great-grandparent. I do agree with Dr. Redman though, in that these forms appeal more to the mass community, trying to reach the most sizable audience possible, while keeping things broad and general. Going by this, it is no surprise that it is referred to as old media, as today’s media is getting substantially more localized.
For arguments sake, look at the various iterations of channel 10 news. Not only are there local group specifically for all the major cities across Australia, when I visit my family in central Queensland, the news is further localized still with news generally consisting of the Central Highlands region and Rockhampton. It seems these days that what people want more than anything is news on their own community, rather than the assumed stereotype of the average Australia.
After the prolonged conversation on Old Media, it was time that the lecture begun talking about New Media, mainly the Web. The topic started off on Web 1.0, the information web. Now considering my father loved to use the web, I was introduced at a young age and have fond memories of this old version of the web. Well actually, to recall them as fond would be a bit of a lie, I mainly recall them as boring and fairly trivial, mainly because the focus wasn’t on the user, but on the corporation. Everywhere you looked, there was one add supporting bill’s will, another for tim’s bins and many of the hilarious adds for adult themed websites. Yes as was stated in the lecture and as will be paraphrased here, Web 1.0 was less interested in letting you have a good time and chatting with friends and more inclined to let shops and businesses advertise. In my opinion, that still happens, but there are more distractions that allow you to avoid paying attention, which is a 100% success in my books.
The topic then shifted to Web 2.0, which is basically the current phase that we are at, called New Media in the Lecture. I found this to be a fairly straight forward topic, considering I’m living with Web 2.0, but viewing it as a progression, it is fairly interesting the Web has actually advanced to this stage. The reason being, is that during the mid 90’s early 00’s, there was this almost apocalyptic idea amongst early computer users, that computers would be a way for humans to escape from their various rat races, embracing the comfort of the computer without the need to constantly socialize with others or rely on their contact to sustain us. But humans, being the social creatures we are, just can’t seem to get away from one another and low and behold, Web 2.0, the social net. Yes rather than finding little need for one another, we seem to have found in insatiable hunger to never be without them. It seems that all people seem to do on the internet these days is spend their time muling over old photos, reminiscing about experiences that occurred ten minutes ago and generally being in constant contact. In my opinion this isn’t a bad thing, social interaction is part of the human experience, however I do think a little restraint is good every now and then, Mozart didn’t need the constant company of family and friends poking him and shouting 140 character sentences to write his masterpieces, to be sure.
The final topic with regards to “New News”, was Web 3.0 the Semantic Web (dun dun dun). The Semantic web at this moment is more of an idea, an aspiration for those techno savvy among us, with the idea being that the internet will actually learn from what we do. Basically, it means that the various programs we use on the internet will share information about us among themselves and work out our pattern of behavior and begin to adjust itself to suit us better. For example, say your a music nut, you’ve got over 300 bands liked on Facebook, regularly looking for chances to meet these people and spending an obscenely large amount of time gushing to others about it. These various programs would them compile a database on all these activities, using that information to inform you about new concerts, setting dates in your calendar to inform you when news bands are set to arrive and providing you with regular music suggestions based on what you listen to and how often you listen. Obviously we aren’t here yet, but it’s getting pretty clear that this isn’t far off either, itunes and Facebook being great examples of how it will look in the future, though it will be an internet wide thing, rather than application based. It also means, that things will begin to become more highly localized, as the need to cater to a persons immediate surroundings will outshine their need to know about the world.
This information poses a serious question for all budding journalists then as to what their place will be in this new world of ours. Now I know that comment was fairly overdramatic, but the topic was discussed in the lecture and I though it was worth the retread. With the Semantic Web ushering a new age of news, one of hyper-localization and a more centralized state, what can be the expected outcome for those among us who specialize in foreign affairs or are interested in global politics, the answer, was not given in the lecture, however I have an idea on what might happen. I think honestly, there is a significant minority of people still fixated on the world outside their own (me to a degree) and what’s likely going to happen is that it will form its own little niche. That’s just my opinion, but I honestly have no issues with this occurring, as it’s almost a niche now.
The final topic of the Lecture, was basically a look into the future (again) of Internet News, specifically whether entitlement will kill the business. For those of you in the lecture you’ll recall this as the part where we were given jellybeans, but to those of you not at the lecture, it was basically discussing the topic of payed internet news and whether the general public would likely protest and riot (possibly) this new change. This was an interesting section of the lecture and one where both sides have significant and altogether justified responses. Now I cannot begin to go into this argument, it’s likely I’ll write a separate blog on the topic later, but I definitely thought it was one worth discussing. The one section I will call on, was that Rupert Murdoch is one of the patriarchal figures in the movement to introduce it, which cause so many problems. It would seem, that there would be significant public dissent if any such move by our good buddy uncle Rupert was behind it, causing a significant blow to it ever being widely accepted by the public, at least that’s what I think would happen.
Having spent some time writing this out, it is quite interesting to think back on and realize just how important this lecture was. It’s provided me with a lot to think about and the inspiration to write a certain article for you all later.
No comments:
Post a Comment