Growing up with the Internet (my parents got dial up when I was eight or nine years old), I always despised the television, but lacked the historical framework to explain why. Broadcast news and sitcoms were my usual targets, and I would contrast the passive isolation of watching television with the participatory, group nature of the Web.
Clay Shirky offers a persuasive framework for understanding how the Web is changing/has been changing/will continue to change society.
Enjoy.
Timothy McNulty at the Chicago Tribune wrote a great article yesterday on journalistic objectivity.
Objectivity is an oft-debated topic amongst journalists. To what extent is it possible? Where are the lines drawn? Has it diminished in the age of cable TV’s talking heads and the numerous opining bloggers? Or, as McNulty says, does objectivity get reduced to neutrality? “On the one hand this” and “on the other hand this,” without any attempt to truly seek the truth?
One thing that interests me is the potential of objectivity on a macro level – especially given the democratizing potential and decentralized nature of the Web.
Update: Chicago Public Radio piece on “News at Seven.”
Northwestern University’s Infolab, which is part of the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, runs an interesting project called “News at Seven.”
In the “News at Seven” broadcast, avatars, not people, report the news. (It’s already gotten considerable press, but will launch a new beta version tomorrow, Monday, October 29th.)
Here’s a preview. (And more old newscasts can be found here or you can read the project blog).
Given my disdain for the broadcast medium, you can imagine the implications I draw from a nifty computer program that can generate video of avatars spitting out news stories. (Note to my broadcast buddies, I didn’t say I disdained the people or the reporting, just the medium).
That said, the avatars, in their present inception, do seem a poor substitute for real people.
Broadcasters, do you feel your job security is threatened?
So I’m conducting research for the NAA on the present usage of videos on American newspaper’s Web sites.
I’ll be keeping my eye out for stories, posts, studies and reports on the phenomenon.
One personal anecdote/prediction before I embark:
Born and raised a lover of print, I’ve always held a particularly disdain for the “cold” medium of broadcast. I want to be in control of my media consumption, not a passive recipient of it. In thinking of newspapers creating video for the Web, I lament that newspapers haven’t gotten there sooner. It’s the one online arena where they’ve got nothing to lose!
Big Broadcast and Television are beginning to figure out online video. As newspapers migrate more into that space as well, I just hope they didn’t miss the opportunity to beat broadcast to the punch.
Matt Bigelow 