“Universities are finally losing their monopoly on higher learning, as the web inexorably becomes the dominant infrastructure for knowledge serving both as a container and as a global platform for knowledge exchange between people.”

“The Detroit of higher learning.”

Eisenwalzwerk (Moderne Cyklopen) - Adolf Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel

In a NY Times editorial, Columbia professor Mark Taylor said that universities are becoming obsolete because they:
- produce a product for which there is no market (teaching positions)
- develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields /publication in journals)
- rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans)

This “industrial model” of education goes back to Kant, who said universities need to “handle the entire content of learning by mass production, so to speak, by a division of labor, so that for every branch of the sciences there would be a public teacher or professor appointed as its trustee.”

This is a problem because…

Kids These Days (are Thinking Differently)

“But young people who have grown up digital are abandoning one-way TV for the higher stimulus of interactive communication they find on the Internet.”

They’re used to multi-tasking, and have learned to handle the information overload. They expect a two-way conversation. What’s more, growing up digital has encouraged this generation to be active and demanding enquirers. Rather than waiting for a trusted professor to tell them what’s going on, they find out on their own on everything from Google to Wikipedia.

The professors who remain relevant will have to:

collaboration

1. Abandon the traditional lecture, and start listening and conversing with the students — shifting from a broadcast style and adopting an interactive one.
2. They should encourage students to discover for themselves, and learn a process of discovery and critical thinking instead of just memorizing the professor’s store of information.
3. They need to encourage students to collaborate among themselves and with others outside the university.
4. They need to tailor the style of education to their students’ individual learning styles.

How Learning Should Be: Discovery / Context

Seymour Papert, one of the world’s foremost experts on how technology can provide new ways to learn put it: “The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a child of the pleasure and benefit of discovery.”

John Seely Brown – learning should be like learning language, “based on social context,” in which individuals are “highly motivated to engage in learning this new, amazingly complex system”

“once you start going to school, in some ways you start to learn much slower because you are being taught, rather than what happens if you’re learning in order to do things that you yourself care about…”

“Learning starts as you leave the classroom, when you start discussing with people around you what was just said. It is in conversation that you start to internalize what some piece of information meant to you.”

Keeping Universities Relevant with Digital Interactive Courses

“If all that the big universities have to offer to students are lectures that you can get online for free — from other professors — why pay the tuition fees? If universities want to survive the arrival of free university-level education online, they need to change the way professors and students interact on campus.”

Example: MIT offers free courses online (OpenCourseWare)

If universities want to stay relevant, they need to offer more interactive classes.

“Today the tools on the Net make it a great way to teach and free up the teacher to design the learning experience and converse with the students on an individual and more meaningful basis.”

One technique is just-in-time teaching: ‘warm-up questions, written by the students, are due a few hours before class, giving the teacher an opportunity to adjust the lesson “just in time,” so that classroom time can be focused on the parts of the assignments that students struggled with.’

According to the 1997 Educom review article “>”From theory to implementation: The Mediated Learning approach to computer-mediated instruction, learning and assessment” by Warren Baker, Thomas Hale, and Bernard R. Gifford:
“students who use well-crafted computer-mediated instruction … generally achieve higher scores on summary examinations, learn their lessons in less time, like their classes more, and develop more positive attitudes towards the subject matter they’re learning”

Challenging the Credentialing System

One argument for Universities is that they provide a credentialling system – as proof of hard workers’ discipline (and weeding out inferior students). Presumably, “those who graduate — better still with distinction — have a credential, to get the most desirable jobs or entrance to graduate programs. They have proven they have a degree of discipline and that they’re prepared to play by the rules.”

But, Tapscott writes, if large, lecture-based universities are proven to inferior to smaller schools with new, more interactive programs, then this model will change – because credentials are based on effectiveness.

Improving the Campus Experience

Is there a point to going to a University if lectures are available for free online? The campus can provide an opportunity for interaction, enhancing learning (going back to Brown’s point above… and Sunstein’s points below).

“The experience has shown MIT that the real value of what they offer is not the lecture per se, but rather the whole package — the content tied to the human learning experience on campus, plus the certification. Universities, in other words, cannot survive on lectures alone.

Videotaping lectures can free up intellectual capital — on the part of both professors and students — to spend their on-campus time thinking and inquiring and challenging each other, rather than just absorbing information.”

Global Academy

Luis M. Proenza, president of the University of Akron: “Why should a university student be restricted to learning from the professors at the university he or she is attending?”

“…Universities should use the Internet to create a global centre of excellence… choose the best courses you have and link them with the best at a handful of universities around the world to create an unquestionably best-in-class program for students. Students would get to learn from the world’s greatest minds in their area of interest — either in the physical classroom, or online. This global academy would be also be open to anyone online.”

Why not?

“New paradigms cause dislocation, disruption, confusion, uncertainty. They are nearly always received with coolness or hostility. Vested interests fight change. And leaders of old paradigms are often the last to embrace the new.”

- “The problem is funds,” one president said. “We just don’t have the money to reinvent the model of pedagogy.”
- “Models of learning that go back decades are hard to change.”
- “I think the problem is the faculty — their average age is 57 and they’re teaching in a ‘post-Gutenberg’ mode.” (or even pre-Gutenberg)

As Proenza says, “There are a lot of sacred cows,” he said. Why, for example, are universities judged by the number of students they exclude, or by how much they spend? Why aren’t they judged by how well they teach, and at what price?”

Conclusion

Students need to be agents of change: ‘If students turn away from a traditional university education, this will erode the value of the credentials universities award, their position as centers of learning and research, and as campuses where young people get a chance to “grow up.”‘

Tapscott calls for a revolutionary, new educational system based on interactive communication.

Sunstein – “Personalized Education and Personalized News”

“Is the power of personalization a wonderful development? For institutions of higher education? For democracy? Should we celebrate complete freedom of choice with respect to the content of education and the content of news” Personalization is the power to “filter” what you see, but education should be “prescribed’ (chosen in advance) for students.

The big question is the “extent to which students should be allowed to exclude what they dislike and include what they like.”

“…institutions of higher learning, like democracy itself, require something other than free, or publicly unrestricted, individual choices” because…

1. “…people should be exposed to materials they would not have chosen in advance. Unanticipated encounters, involving topics and points of view that people have not sought out and perhaps find quite irritating, are central to education, democracy, and even to freedom itself.
2. “Many or most citizens… should have a range of common experiences. Without shared experiences, members of a heterogeneous society will have a difficult time addressing social problems, since people will find it increasingly hard to understand one another.”

People have always had some amount of choice in their education/media content. But the internet dramatically increases “individual control over content.” Correspondingly, the power of general-interest intermediaries – the newspapers, magazines, television broadcasters, and educational administrations” has decreased. This is a problem because traditional media allow you to be exposed to content you might not normally choose.

“A well-designed campus will ensure such [chance/unwanted] encounters, as students meet people engaged in very different activities and concerned with very different issues.” This allows students to “discover topics that can alter interests/attentions” or change their lives. “One risk with a system of perfect individual control is that it can reduce the importance of the ‘public sphere’ and of common spaces in general.”

Constitutional Principle of Free Speech

“Public Forum Doctrine” adopted by the Supreme Court says streets and parks must be kept open to the public for expressive activity. This implies a belief that governments are obliged to allow speech to occur freely in public.

1. Ensures speakers can have access to a wide array of people
2. Allows speakers to have general access to specific people/institutions with whom they have a complaint
3. Increases the likelihood that citizens will be exposed to a wide variety of people or views

While the internet breaks monopoly of general-interest intermediaries (such as newspapers, magazines, television broadcasters, educational administrations) on public forums, the traditional intermediaries do “expose people to a wide range of topics and views at the same time they provide shared experiences for a heterogeneous public.”

Wider Choices = More Exclusion

“Selecting can produce narrowness, not breadth. The wider range of choices is likely, in many cases, to mean that people will try to find material that makes them feel comfortable or that is created by and for people like themselves.”

This leads to group polarization. “After deliberating with one another, people in a group are likely to move toward a more extreme point in the direction to which they were previously inclined, as indicated by the median of their predeliberation judgments.”

Sunstein says “…the likely result of personalization is that groups with distinctive identities will increasingly engage in within-group discussion” or balkanization.

This harms the educational experience itself (which involves exposure to many different viewpoints), AND it endangers democracy by degrading the wide experiences one receives in an education.

1. “ A good system of education should counteract this risk [group polarization] by exposing people to a wide variety of perspectives.” … “Education is not an ordinary commodity, in part because it should shape preferences and values, not merely cater to them.”
2. “A well-functioning democracy and a well-functioning system of higher education require that people be exposed to unanticipated, unchosen encounters and that people share a range of common experiences.”

Sunstein’s Talk at the University of Michigan’s 18th Annual Davis Market Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Free Expression

In this talk, Sunstein mainly elaborated on points made in his article… here are some of the things he brings up to support his point about the necessity of directed education, shared experiences and democracy.

3 Studies

Sunstein tapped the Rockies for his experiment.

1. Sunstein and other researchers performed an experiment with groups in Colorado Springs (mainly Republican) and Boulder (mainly Democrat). Before the experiment started, the participants were asked questions designed to gauge how strongly they felt about certain polarizing political issues. Then they were allowed time to deliberate on those issues with other participants in their group (the members of each group had the same political leaning). After deliberation, the average group viewpoint on the political issues was more extreme than those of the individual viewpoints measured before deliberation. Additionally, individual views measured after deliberation became more extreme.

The research shows that within ideologically uniform groups, internal diversity is squelched and diversion from the median becomes much more dramatic.

2. US Courts of Appeals have 3 members and they can be 3 Republican appointees (RRR), 3 Democratic appointees (DDD), RRD, or DDR. A study of the outcome of labor law cases showed that RRR or DDD decisions were more extreme than the decisions of mixed courts (RRD or DDR). At the same time, in mixed courts the dissenting decision was far less ideologically extreme.

3. In a study of 1000 Texan jury-eligible people, participants were asked to rank corporate misconduct cases from 1-6 on their moral severity and then to assign a dollar amount to how much the company should pay to make up for it.

While moral judgments were strikingly uniform across the board, the dollar amounts were very unpredictable.

In a second step for the experiment, the participants were given the chance to deliberate about their moral judgments and dollar amounts… after deliberation, moral judgments became more extreme (whether extremely severe or extremely lenient). At the same time, the dollar amounts for each case increased (whether the moral judgment moved up or down).

All three studies showed examples of group polarization, where after deliberation with like-minded people, viewpoints grow more extreme.

Social Architecture

Sunstein theorizes two kinds of freedom enabled by social architectures:

1. Control – characterized by self-sorting and convenience
2. Serendipity – characterized by unanticipated, unchosen encounters or shared experiences with others

He favors serendipity – saying shared experiences are the foundation of liberal democracy and academic freedom. He goes on to review what he says in the article about the Public Forum Doctrine and remarks upon Jane Jacobs’s work on American Cities, showing the “criticalness” of public spaces for creating unimaginable, unexpected encounters… which lead to tolerance.

While cities nowadays are lacking those locations, television, newspapers, and universities are picking up the slack – providing opportunities for people to learn things they wouldn’t normally be interested in or changing their minds about critical issues.

He says that this:
1. Provides social glue to a diverse population (by creating a shared information source)
2. Allows people to encounter diverse topics even if they wouldn’t normally see them.

As a technological analogue… Political blogging allows like-minded groups to stick together… and links to unlike-minded people usually point out “the contemptuous or ridiculous nature” of those other sites.

In groups, people try to present themselves as a certain type of person – not a moderate or boring person. Brain scan studies show that when people’s views are corroborated with another, they:

1. like the other person better, and
2. like themselves better too.

The polarization machine / echo chamber effect impairs education literally and impairs the type of education required by democracy.

Importance of a Free and Widely-Read Press

1. No nation every with a democratically elected government and a free press has ever experienced a famine.
2. A famine is a measure of how governments respond to food scarcity.
3. Pressure provided by a free press requires the government to do something under these conditions.

Sunstein says this shows the importance of the ability of information to flow from one person to another – people can’t be “cocooned” and receptive only to info they like – there needs to be a permeable membrane.

Cell Membranes are semipermeable. I know this because of general education requirements. Directed education at work!

Educational institutions need to protect against group polarization and provide space for serendipity and work against self-sorting – not just for the sake of learning but also for interpersonal understanding.

Technology!

1. Allows for new kinds of public spaces with unrealized possibilities and deliberative forums.
2. But we need to recognize the importance of respectful links between blogs – a “civic tip of the hat” to other viewpoints.

Points brought up in question and answer session:
1. Polarization isn’t always bad (sometimes the “center is lousy” – i.e. Nazis).
2. Large scale polarization is possible, it is not just represented small group behavior.Similar Posts:

• i can haz teknoluhgee – pt3 (2) |
• Alternate Reality Games As Education Tools (1) |
• I can haz teknoluhgee – conclusion… (3) |

Click here to view the embedded video.

This week I used screencasting as my rich media, and went through the WELL as I’ve been participating in it.  I’ve been a member for two weeks now – it’s been an enjoyable experience, but I kind of feel like I’m time traveling. It definitely does have more of a communal feel to me than other social areas on the internet, different from something like Facebook or a general messageboard.

There are two main characteristics that have stood out to me so far:

1) The minimal, old school design and lack of advertising (made possible through paid monthly subscriptions).

2) The content of the conferences (I’d argue they’re full of intelligence and “class”), and the dedication that the members have to participating (many 20 years+).

I find myself writing posts on the WELL similar to how I would write something like a blog post for this class. I spellcheck, make sure my arguments and thoughts make sense, and make sure I’m adding to the conversation. I think about my actions way more. Maybe because I’m writing to strangers? Maybe because I’m an “outsider”/newbie as most members are at least familiar with each other (any many have been for years). It’s definitely different from how I would communicate on other online platforms. More conclusions next week.

As for my video, I think a screencast is an efficient way of seeing how the site works, but I find the dullest of all formats so far. Also I wish the picture was clearer and my video was shorter (realistically I know I probably wouldn’t watch 9 minutes of a screencast either).Similar Posts:

• Jumping Into the WELL (5) |
• From Communes to Conferences (1) |
• Concluding the 4th travelogue and this evolutionary step (0) |

For some reason, the blip.tv embed isn’t playing anything, and the Internet Archive embed code won’t show up…help? In the meantime, here is the direct link to the podcast.

Next post I will probably go through a screen cast detailing my experience as a member so far.

Similar Posts:

• A Rough Guide to the WELL (2) |
• Jumping Into the WELL (5) |
• I can haz teknoluhgee – conclusion… (3) |

I decided to use video for my choice of media, so you can watch a short youtube clip here as I first explain a bit about the site and then go through sort of a short slide show of the actual site pages. (This is my first-ever attempt using iMovie as well as uploading anything to youtube, so just keep that in mind…though it was nice to finally learn how do actually do these things )

Some more detail about my travelogue after the clip:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I thought it was very interesting that The WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link) is direct linked to the ideology of the 1960s. It stems from the Whole Earth Catalog, a counterculture/hippie magazine published in the late sixties – Stewart Brand, was the founder of both the WELL and the Catalog, and published The Whole Review (more focused on emerging software and technology) between the two. 

While membership numbers were never overwhelming, the first ten years of the WELL were seen as extremely influential in issues of online communities.

“Such issues were debated by a virtual “Who’s Who” of internet visionaries and entrepreneurs on the WELL, including John Perry Barlow, the first person to describe the internet as “cyberspace,” John Gilmore, one of the earliest employees of Sun Microsystems, Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corp., Kevin Kelly, executive director of WIRED, and Howard Rheingold, virtual community guru, journalist, and author.” – The Internet: A Historical Encyclopedia

While the WELL (now owned by Salon.com) is obviously nowhere near as influential as it was fifteen or twenty years ago (most people have never even heard of it), they still deem themselves to hold a very special place on the Internet. On the About page, it’s described as a “cherished destination,” a “remarkably literate and uninhibited intellectual gathering,” “a gathering place where the lost art of conversation trumps the sound bite,” etc. (Also see the quotes used in my video). 

I’m going to become a member of the WELL for this travelogue, and see a) if it’s everything it’s still described to be (ie, an intellectual gathering), b) how it compares with the online communities we’ve now come to know, c) perhaps try to directly connect with members and gather their opinions on what the WELL was and now is, d) try and see how it has influenced online communities in general. 

I registered as a member yesterday (hopefully it will be worth my monthly membership fee of $10), but I’m still waiting for it to be processed. After I am privy to the Conferences (aka forums) I’ll know more about where I’m headed with this – I’ll probably stick with the video format, and maybe incorporate screencasts or podcasts. I’m definitely open to suggestions.Similar Posts:

• A Rough Guide to the WELL (2) |
• From Communes to Conferences (1) |
• Doing it for the “lulz” – Griefers, 4Chan, and Taking the Internet Seriously (12) |

Members of 4chan are known for being extremely computer and internet savvy, being able to uncover anything about anyone on the internet, while at the same time being the originators of enjoyable, ridiculous memes such as LOLCats. These users are also known for “griefing” other online communities, such as Habbo, WoW, and Second Life. Griefing is an antisocial behavior in which a user (or group of users, as the case usually is) decide to go against the collective, productive nature of the game by spamming a virtual world with graphics, killing other users while not in batttle, etc., as a way to make fun of how many users take these games too seriously. A famous example of griefing in WoW can be seen here (sorry, this goes against the no Google challenge, but I feel its important in explaining exactly what a Griefer is) :

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you don’t want to view the video, essentially what happens is a WoW player died in real life, and her WoW guild (and friends) decide to have a funeral for her in the game on a PvP server (a server in which players can kill each other), during which another guild raids the funeral and kills all of the users mourning this girl’s death. This was taken VERY seriously by the users whose characters were killed and was generally considered a “dick move” by the WoW community.

What I aim to do is research different aspects of griefing, specifically focusing on message boards like 4chan and Something Awful, and show how these individuals make sense of their virtual worlds and what it means to be productive on the internet. Additionally, I’d like to explore the few cases in which griefing behaviors have had positive outcomes in real life (i.e. the Kenny Glenn case, note: not work-friendly, and I would not suggest viewing the videos, especially if you like cats).

Comments? Thoughts?Similar Posts:

• The internet’s “waste of space”: How do griefers and trolls on communities like 4chan help us make sense of online communities? (5) |
• SRSLY!?!?!?!? Online griefing, Internet Commentary, and Cyber-Bullying. (2) |
• “The Internet Is Serious Business”: Who are griefers and what do their actions mean for the rest of cyberspace? (9) |

By Gary Kamiya

In his piece for Salon.com, Kamiya makes the case for why news reporting must be kept alive. While all traditional media is currently being threatened, newspapers are having the most trouble staying afloat.

For Kamiya, the news no longer coming from a tangible printed media is not the problem – the problem is the loss of news reporting.

Original reporting is not financially viable. Sites such as the Huffington Post do very little actual reporting, and are monetarily more successful. Op-eds on sites such as these can produce copy at a faster rate for a much lower price, and usually generate more traffic than reported pieces.

Why Kamiya believes news reporting must be saved:

- It is said that at least 80% of all news online stems from printed stories. Without these stories created by multiple firsthand accounts of field reporters, we’ll lose perspective about our world. If our news stories lack primary reports from actual people (as opposed to documents, commentary, or opinions), our world will become dehumanized.

- Without these firsthand accounts, global actions would be invisible. A lack of reporting on global atrocities would mean a lack of public dissent. Regimes would have little to answer to.

- On a more local level, communities around the country would be even more isolated and divided from each other than they are now. Political compromise would be difficult, and personal opinions would get even louder.

- We’ll also lose the objectivity (or at least objectivity as a goal) that comes from professional journalists. This goes along with connections to developed sources and fact checking.

- We’ll be inclined to learn about topics that suit our interests, rarely broadening our knowledge on subjects we wouldn’t ordinarily be subjected to. Online media is catered towards self-selection and individual desires. When consumers can choose their own news, they can alter their version of reality.

- The institutional power of newspapers seems like the only thing that can counteract the threat they now face. But it has been recently suggested in a New York Times Op-Ed column that in order to save newspapers, they be subsidized and removed from market forces all together – similar to non-profits or colleges. This would be a cause for concern for many. Elitist and high-minded, there’s a possibility that private foundations and supporters could influence content.

Kamiya doesn’t fail to discount the advantages of new media – there’s more information available to a wider audience, and readers now have a voice. Academics, analysts and bloggers can be just as knowledgeable about facts without being connected to such influential sources that often come with hidden agendas. But without the reporting that goes along with old media, we’ll be limited to a world stuck inside ourselves.

_________

On the Media: Brooke, Clive and Ethan at Aspen

Brooke Gladstone of On the Media, Ethan Zuckerman, researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Center and founder of Global Voices, and Clive Thompson, who writes about new media for The New York Times and Wired discuss the internet and homophily, the natural tendency of humans to behave like birds in the sense that those of a feather flock together.

Because the internet makes it so easy for us to surround ourselves with only the information we agree with and ideas that we already like, how do we allow new information we wouldn’t ordinarily seek out but may still consider, in?

The conversation starts off by discussing the Twitter revolutions in Moldova and Iran. Regarded as a new form of reporting and a way to challenge censors, Twitter also allowed hundreds of thousands of people around the globe to participate in the movements. Here, Twitter served as a tool to spread information that otherwise would have not reached such a vast audience.

Clive Thompson talks about the Dunbar number, or, the limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. In pre-internet days, an individual’s number was limited to around 150, but with the advancement of the internet and social networks, one’s online relationships can be made up of an unlimited number of weak links. Thompson asserts that he gains information about a variety of topics through the weak ties he has to the several hundred people he’s connected to through Facebook and Twitter. His homophily problem is that he doesn’t know much about pop culture – but because information will seek through these weak links, he’ll often learn about what’s going on in TV, music and film.

Zuckerman interjects that even if one has a wide variety of Facebook and Twitter friends, most likely, one is getting information from people who are of a similar race, class, and profession. He’s not convinced that a large sphere of people necessarily means a large sphere of radically different opinions. In order to expand this realm of information, he believes that we need to connect people around the globe.

The discussion moves on to the model of collaborative filtering (used by the recommendation services on iTunes, Amazon and Netflix).  While this is commonly used in the area of music, books, and movies, Zuckerman thinks this can be broadened much further by bridging perspectives of people from different cultures who can each contextualize and bring an understanding to what’s actually happening in their country.

Even if this were to take place, the challenging part would be to get people to desire a service such as this and to go outside their realm of everyday information into the foreign and unfamiliar.

Zuckerman believes that the key to solving this challenge is personal connection. It’s why Twitter was such a big part of the revolution in Iran – a human face was put on it. Whether through individual connection, a brilliant narrative, pop culture, or in the worst case, celebrity, to make people pay attention, other parts of the world must be made accessible and relative.

_________

Bloggers Vs. Journalists is Over (this was a long one…)

By Jay Rosen

Rosen seeks to put an end to the debate of bloggers vs. journalists. In recent years (this essay was written in 2005), the press as a “franchise” has shifted from being based only in the hands of the Media as a business, and has extended into public hands due to the internet. Established professionals have left old media to start new ventures online, where there’s greater room for non-traditional ideas, illustrating the limits of the professional press.

Professional journalists are no longer the supreme rulers and single gatekeepers of information when it comes to providing news content. With new online publishing tools, powerful internet connections, and mobile devices, the audience which professional journalists once served now has the power to participate in the production and distribution of information they once consumed.

However, this doesn’t mean that professional journalism has a declining influence or is no longer relevant – the balance of power has simply changed.

One problem journalism faces is the decrease in credibility of old media. According to the Pew Research Center, from 1988-2004, the public view that there was no bias in political reporting decreased from 58% to 38%. And many professional journalists agree with this – objectivity, once the “ethical touchstone for journalism,” has collapsed. (In 2007, 55% of respondents believed news organizations were politically biased.)

Another problem Big Journalism faces is the lack of “voice.” Consumers have a tendency to feel a personal closeness to blogs, where there is often a direct connection between readers and the author writing the content. Rosen cites John Robinson, editor of the Greensboro News-Record as an example of an author who’s read for his personal accessibility.

Rosen believes that questioning bloggers’ credentials as “real journalists” is irrelevant. Journalism and blogging both have their own strengths and weaknesses. The two forms of media must work together to learn from each other to create a mutual benefit.

Rosen recommends the following points to extend discussion:

1)     The extension of the First Amendment to a greater public is the most important reason why blogs matter. People now have the ability to take free expression into their own hands.

2)     He moves on to the issue of trust.  The most important assets of a news organization are trust and reputation. Professional journalists who work for established organizations benefit from this accumulated capital, while bloggers must build trust and reputation from the ground up. Often closely connected to their readers, bloggers can usually do this more easily than a professional journalist by focusing on their readers’ wants and needs, and participating in a live dialogue.

3)     Due to the growth of the internet, knowledge is easier to access than ever before. With this comes a new breed if amateur. Knowledgeable, educated and connected, these new amateurs make up The Pro-Am Revolution. This is seen not only in journalism, but in most industries once controlled by professionals.

4)     The obstacle of credibility may be transformed by turning news as a lecture into news as a conversation. While many traditional journalists believe that the more information there is to be consumed online, the greater the need for an intelligent filter (Big Journalism), it’s more likely that online, information becomes more intelligent through interaction. Rosen believes that trust will come from the interaction between the users and journalists.

5)     Bloggers are often “stand alone journalists,” and some journalists are now bloggers (either identifying with a brand or standing alone). While the stand alone style may cause practical problems, it also helps build trust. The personal nature of blogs allows readers to connect to the information.

Conclusion:

As shown through the tsunami of 2004 (the revolution in Iran being a more current example), the greatest strength of blogging and citizens’ journalism (through other formats such as texts, photographs and video) is the vividness and volume of first person accounts widely available to anyone with an internet connection. The major weakness of this is the lack of a cohesive story. Here, with all of its discipline, professional journalism has the advantage.

Questioning whether blogs will replace traditional media is irrelevant. They must work in a symbiotic relationship to benefit each other. Instead of replacing old media, blogging has expanded media, connected audiences, and re-voiced journalism – and in this new media world, Rosen believes there is room for all sorts of writing and opinion.Similar Posts:

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