“Take a Stand”
After reading “Take a Stand” by Brent Cunningham, it became clear to me that with this new digital era upon us, journalists are forced to really sort of start to escape from the traditional ways of doing things. That perhaps instead of just your basic news and reporting, journalists should start to use their power to steer the public in the right direction when it comes to what to think about on a newsworthy issue.
Personally, I like how Cunningham states, “So the press needs a new mission, and the nation needs someone to help initiate and lead the discussion of what kind of place America will be in the twenty-first century.”
With this idea being taken into action, the press will have to begin to pay more attention to sustained coverage of ideas and solutions, rather than breaking news. For many journalists who have been in this field for years this will be more of a challenge for them. For those aspiring journalists of today, not so much.
The new age journalists objective may be to reflect what is best and what is most important of news coverage.
The relationship with the people was replaced by one-way conversation, from the press to the public.. which will now evolve drastically with the digital technology of today. I am interested to see how this all unfolds during my lifetime.
I will reflect back to this digital journalism class, sitting here at twenty one years old and think wow have things changed.
“Find Your Voice: Writing for A Webzine”
After reading this article, it became clear to me that you have to take your “public voice” your “private voice” and your “commerical voice” and find, somewhat of a happy medium.
You have to build this voice for yourself. Let it be what suits you. To me, this reminds me of that little voice in your head, the voice of your thoughts, the one that you hear when you read your own work.
That “voice” is best demonstrated by Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) in the old TV show The Wonder Years. If that show was a part of our culture today, I can totally picture Kevin having an excellent blog or webzine.
Kevin on The Wonder Years
After I finished reading this article, I jumped on the web and started searching for some inspiring blogs by women. Of course the search results were endless. The first one that I could relate to and found myself reading word for word…was a blog called “Modite” by blogger Rebecca Thorman.
“A Generation Y Blog” , I thought to myself, how fitting!! A blog that bases it’s community around those of us whom are a part of Generation Y; the generation generally marked by an increased use and familiarity with communications, media, and digital technologies. You guessed it…I subscribed to her RSS feed. And you should too!
Rebecca Thorman’s categories on her blog are all very interesting, she has a lot that relate to our digital journalism class. Check this one out inparticular.
I am choosing her to identify with, learn her style. I think it would be really cool to have a blog with followers like she has. She seems to have really made a name for herself with the blog and created quite a following. Her RSS feed alone has 1,019 subscribers.
Let me know what you think about her blog!
Digital Journalism Wikipedia Update:
A week later: and all of the information I have submitted remains word for word. 
Perhaps it’s there for good!
It’s kinda neat to know I submitted something that millions of users will potentially read in the future on wikipedia.
Wikipedia
I have completed my first submission to Wikipedia tonight. I was surprised by just how easy it really was. This is a great example of citizen journalism at its finest.
Here is what I added to the Digital Journalism Wikipedia page;
A new media environment is upon us, which simply has called for a new model for news production and delivery. An ecological model will now be replacing the legacy model within the media system. The ecological model exists within our digital environment and is supported by the internet and the World Wide Web. This model is decentralized, unfiltered, and egalitarian. The ecological model has a many-to-many distribution, as opposed to the legacy model which was built in an analog, print, and electronic media environment which drastically differs with a one-to-many distribution, as well as it was highly centralized and filtered.
With this new era of journalism, citizen journalists have became widespread over the internet . For citizen journalism to be effective and successful there needs to be a citizen editor. The role of the citizen editor is highly important, their role is to solicit other people to provide accurate information and encourage interactivity among the users.
The point of view of consumers on the news, the readers or viewers, as well as the point of view of the creators of the news, journalists and newscasters have all been impacted by this new media. There is now an increase within choice and variety, this is important to those who want a balanced point of view and gather all sides of a story.
I then, of course, went through and linked the key words in my paragraphs that already had a wikipedia page of their own.
I am curious to wait and see what gets edited and what they may take off.
I will continue to blog on the updates.
Understanding New Media
The online news environment blurs the distinction between news and information by linking the past with the immediate present. When breaking news is added, once it becomes known, then it then turns into background material for the interpretation of the latest events that take place afterward.
Rich Gordon, chair of Newspapers and New Media at Northwestern University pointed out that for citizen journalism to be effective and successful there needs to be a “citizen editor”.
The role of a citizen editor is to solicit other people to provide accurate information and encourage interactivity among the users.
I do agree with Gordon, I think that the role of the citizen editor is going to become highly substantial as citizen journalism grows in popularity. I took it upon myself after reading “Understanding New Media” to look into the role of a citizen editor and citizen journalism in general and came across this article, “New Desk in the Newsroom.” Rich Gordon is also quoted here.
While anyone can participate in citizen journalism, it takes a talented, dedicated individual to be a citizen editor. A person who can take initiative for the good of the community.
I really enjoyed the end of this article explaining how if newspapers can no longer be the first to report breaking news due to television, internet and radio that they should perhaps be a source of depth, analysis and opinion by shrinking publication and creating a source of past events with analysis. I believe that this is where the future of newsprint newspapers lie.
Digital News Environment
The new ecological model has laid the foundation for whats to come in the future of digital journalism. Taking advantage of the many-to-many outlet, really gives people the ability to share and spread news amongst each other. People are more connected and informed by using the internet than ever before.
Personally, I like the idea of the most current news being available first, whether it be on the front of a web page or listed in a feed of most recent news. To me this is important in terms of the most up-to-date news, rather than being structured according to someone’s judgment of “importance”. (ex; a newspaper layout)
I also prefer the user-led environment over the editor driven environment. I think this gives journalists more freedom and makes room for the journalist themselves to make judgment calls based on their own stories and reporting.
“It Takes A Village To Find A Phone”
“It Takes A Village To Find A Phone” by Clay Shirky.
Years ago when cell phones did not have access to the internet, built-in cameras and GPS devices, when a cell phone was lost in a New York City cab…it was lost forever. Ivanna’s story is rather different, being that she had a T Mobile Sidekick, she was able to have information from her lost phone sent to her new phone. That was when she discovered photos of the girl, Sasha, whose hands her lost phone were now in…
After failed attempts of trying to get the phone back from Sasha, and receiving nothing but attitude in return, Ivanna’s friend Evan decided to take this story public by creating a website with Sasha’s pictures posted on it and a lesson on “the etiquette of returning people’s lost belongings.” The Stolen Sidekick page began to spread as Evan’s friends and their friends continued to forward it all over the internet. This website caught the attention of people from all over, who then began to get involved leaving comments and looking up Sasha on Myspace.
All it took was simply friends, of friends, of friends creating a one-person media outlet to continue to forward on the link to everyone on their “friend list” and soon there was a ton of controversy on the web over a Sidekick.
As popularity for the website grew, Sasha’s family and friends threatened Evan that they were going to sue him for harassment, and threatening e-mails poured Evan’s inbox.
That was when Evan and Ivanna decided they would take action themselves and file a report with the police for a stolen phone rather than a lost phone at this point since Sasha was refusing to return it.
With millions of readers and dozens of mainstream news outlets covering the story at this point, the NYPD’s refusal to treat this case as threat received so many complaints that the police later reversed their stand and agreed to treat the phone as stolen rather than lost.
Sasha was arrested and the phone was returned to Ivanna in the end.
This was the perfect story of not only the power of group action, but how one can use social networking to really get the word out. The internet allows people to have a voice like they have never been given before. The cost of publishing is almost non-existent now that we have the web within our reach.
This story proves how different our society is now, we now have the tools and the social structures to have our voice heard like never before.
