Internet is one of the representative examples of global usage of media. Rapid spreading of the popular culture and its global acceptance mean that people can satisfy their various needs.
Other media, thanks to globalization, face the possibilities of interaction which is essential for nature of the media in modern age. Internet brought less media centralization as well as less power of the media in particular countries. This refers to the fact that national media obviously have less influence on public.
Besides the positive effects of media globalization, which are often used for explaining the advantage of internet, negative aspects of this trend must also be considered. Negative effects of media globalization include the demonstration of power of transnational companies. This leads to “ commercial model of communication”, which changes the information into selling product. Information must satisfy the need of the market.
Maybe the internet is one of the media that is the least influenced by commercialization, although the effects of it can’t be avoided.
Does this lead to a paradox- the new media, which have big effects on users and are globally used, are less commercialized?
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Internet and Communism
Stressing out the importance of the internet for new generations and for media development is completely useless. Everyone knows what internet has done to communication and to the media concept as a whole.
What I am thinking about is the way a middle aged man or woman from an ex - communist country looks at the internet.
Only fifteen years ago Montenegro was still a society with dominance of one, Communist Party, and with strong control of the media. The journalists’ freedom reached the possible publishing of Party’s activities, and media served to promote the goals of Socialism.
After the crash of Communism, more freedom of speech and publishing was expected. The way media functioned had to be changed because political pluralism was coming. At that time journalists weren’t sure what was permitted and what was prohibited any more. The change of writing for readers and not for the Party, brought a chaos into their value system, critical thinking and objectivity.
Older journalists in Montenegro, who worked during the Communism era, still write for politicians. A very small number of them uses internet. I do not think they are aware of the interactivity or any other advantage of the internet. They hardly search the web when looking for important information. They don’t think of internet as something that can make their work easier, they are rather skeptical. Internet simply doesn’t fit their habits and their way of thinking – the less democracy there is, the better we write.
Younger journalists bring hope- they seem to be very opened for new, democratic age of journalism and for internet as one of the carriers of that process. Now the internet is common good and the capitalism looks like the only way to reach it.
What I am thinking about is the way a middle aged man or woman from an ex - communist country looks at the internet.
Only fifteen years ago Montenegro was still a society with dominance of one, Communist Party, and with strong control of the media. The journalists’ freedom reached the possible publishing of Party’s activities, and media served to promote the goals of Socialism.
After the crash of Communism, more freedom of speech and publishing was expected. The way media functioned had to be changed because political pluralism was coming. At that time journalists weren’t sure what was permitted and what was prohibited any more. The change of writing for readers and not for the Party, brought a chaos into their value system, critical thinking and objectivity.
Older journalists in Montenegro, who worked during the Communism era, still write for politicians. A very small number of them uses internet. I do not think they are aware of the interactivity or any other advantage of the internet. They hardly search the web when looking for important information. They don’t think of internet as something that can make their work easier, they are rather skeptical. Internet simply doesn’t fit their habits and their way of thinking – the less democracy there is, the better we write.
Younger journalists bring hope- they seem to be very opened for new, democratic age of journalism and for internet as one of the carriers of that process. Now the internet is common good and the capitalism looks like the only way to reach it.
Friday, January 11, 2008
McLuhan and the internet
I found a presentation of a book “Mc Luhan reconsidered” by Jim Andrews (http://vispo.com/writings/essays/mcluhana.htm), and an interesting Nicholas Carr’s blog (http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2007/11/mcluhans_net.php). Both authors give their opinion on Marshall McLuhan’s theories, and explain how theories of this famous scientist changed with the new media.
Marshall McLuhan was Canadian academic, known by his best-selling book Understanding Media. His central thesis, expressed in the famous phrase “the medium is the message,” was that the technologies through which we take in information ( media) become “extensions” of our bodies.
McLuhan believed that culture is affected by technology through the impact on social structures but also by the ways in which it changes us. The technology will, according to McLuhan, shape our actions.
The electric media of television and computers, argued McLuhan, would liberate us from our dependence on the printed word. Print was what he called a “hot” medium, one that absorbed all of our attention and left little room for participation. The spoken word, was by contrast a “cool” medium that left plenty of space for participation.
Electric media, being cool technologies that promote interaction, would bring back our lost tribal consciousness, McLuhan believed.
I like the blogger’s interpretation of McLuhan theories. I agree with him- we can’t put internet into “hot” and cool” difference. It encourages participation but it also dominates user’s senses and attention. I wouldn’t say the internet brings back our consciousness. “Global village” is enormous, so it changes the way community and humanity should be considered, in terms of cyber society.
Marshall McLuhan was Canadian academic, known by his best-selling book Understanding Media. His central thesis, expressed in the famous phrase “the medium is the message,” was that the technologies through which we take in information ( media) become “extensions” of our bodies.
McLuhan believed that culture is affected by technology through the impact on social structures but also by the ways in which it changes us. The technology will, according to McLuhan, shape our actions.
The electric media of television and computers, argued McLuhan, would liberate us from our dependence on the printed word. Print was what he called a “hot” medium, one that absorbed all of our attention and left little room for participation. The spoken word, was by contrast a “cool” medium that left plenty of space for participation.
Electric media, being cool technologies that promote interaction, would bring back our lost tribal consciousness, McLuhan believed.
I like the blogger’s interpretation of McLuhan theories. I agree with him- we can’t put internet into “hot” and cool” difference. It encourages participation but it also dominates user’s senses and attention. I wouldn’t say the internet brings back our consciousness. “Global village” is enormous, so it changes the way community and humanity should be considered, in terms of cyber society.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
The end of journalists` ego era?
I read a very interesting article called “ Journalism without journalists”, by Michael Maier. The author found two on-line newspapers. He wrote that his main goals had been to create a newspaper without paper when founding the first one, Netzeitung. He created his second paper, Readings Edition, in order to have a newspaper without journalists. The reason why he wanted to do that was very interesting.
“ My experience with Netzeitung taught me that journalists are basically very conservative; they can give up some habits, but not all of them. The journalists with whom I worked at Netzeitung did not miss the physical paper, but they surely missed admiring their bylines in the paper over morning coffee”, he wrote. He also said that he had tried to avoid stressing the journalist’s authority through his byline right at the top of each article by using a link which led the reader to the journalist who edited an article. He explains that “it didn’t work—not because of the readers, but because of the journalists. The Internet’s heightened time pressures did not bother them; on the contrary, they soon defined speed as the major virtue of Internet journalism. But it dispirited the journalists to sign-off with the simple words “edited for the Web by …” even for articles that had been published in world-record speed. They either wanted to see their name in italics at the beginning of each text or they did not want to see it at all”.
The author says that journalist see their vocation as a mission and that “they want to be—and often are—the high priests of society: watchdogs, protesters, critics.” He said that journalists’ choice to place values before wealth, leads to arrogance and makes journalists look on their readers to some degree.
Citizen journalism changes the situation- readers can write. The authors write about things readers care about and in a way that readers find compelling. Internet brought us to a time where there is no difference between amateurs and professionals. The author finds it to be outrageous.
After this short summary of the article, I must admit that I disagree with the author at some important points.
I wouldn’t say that journalists have such a huge ego. They write for their readers, not for their friends. In a non- democratic society journalists write for the government, important business people, etc., and they might care for the byline. But in a developed democracy with full freedom of speech, I don’t think the byline is all the journalists care about.
Citizen journalism may bring the difference between amateurs and professionals, but I wouldn’t say that Internet caused it. There was never such a big difference between the two. Journalist could be anyone.
Articles wrote by readers maybe are more interesting, but it takes more time to read them all, and to avoid the inappropriate content.
Anyways, this is a very interesting observation by the author who probably had a lot of experience working with journalists. Maybe I am too conservative about his attitudes (not all of them, off course), but I appreciate journalism as an, in this case, old- fashioned profession.
Article
Michael Maier, Journalism without Journalists:
Vision or Caricature? ,
Founder and CEO, Blogform Publishing
Shorenstein Center Sagan Fellow, Spring 2007 .
http://www.cyberjournalist.net/journalism-without-journalists/
“ My experience with Netzeitung taught me that journalists are basically very conservative; they can give up some habits, but not all of them. The journalists with whom I worked at Netzeitung did not miss the physical paper, but they surely missed admiring their bylines in the paper over morning coffee”, he wrote. He also said that he had tried to avoid stressing the journalist’s authority through his byline right at the top of each article by using a link which led the reader to the journalist who edited an article. He explains that “it didn’t work—not because of the readers, but because of the journalists. The Internet’s heightened time pressures did not bother them; on the contrary, they soon defined speed as the major virtue of Internet journalism. But it dispirited the journalists to sign-off with the simple words “edited for the Web by …” even for articles that had been published in world-record speed. They either wanted to see their name in italics at the beginning of each text or they did not want to see it at all”.
The author says that journalist see their vocation as a mission and that “they want to be—and often are—the high priests of society: watchdogs, protesters, critics.” He said that journalists’ choice to place values before wealth, leads to arrogance and makes journalists look on their readers to some degree.
Citizen journalism changes the situation- readers can write. The authors write about things readers care about and in a way that readers find compelling. Internet brought us to a time where there is no difference between amateurs and professionals. The author finds it to be outrageous.
After this short summary of the article, I must admit that I disagree with the author at some important points.
I wouldn’t say that journalists have such a huge ego. They write for their readers, not for their friends. In a non- democratic society journalists write for the government, important business people, etc., and they might care for the byline. But in a developed democracy with full freedom of speech, I don’t think the byline is all the journalists care about.
Citizen journalism may bring the difference between amateurs and professionals, but I wouldn’t say that Internet caused it. There was never such a big difference between the two. Journalist could be anyone.
Articles wrote by readers maybe are more interesting, but it takes more time to read them all, and to avoid the inappropriate content.
Anyways, this is a very interesting observation by the author who probably had a lot of experience working with journalists. Maybe I am too conservative about his attitudes (not all of them, off course), but I appreciate journalism as an, in this case, old- fashioned profession.
Article
Michael Maier, Journalism without Journalists:
Vision or Caricature? ,
Founder and CEO, Blogform Publishing
Shorenstein Center Sagan Fellow, Spring 2007 .
http://www.cyberjournalist.net/journalism-without-journalists/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)