After spending a semester studying the ins and outs of the new media, I think we can all come to the conclusion that there is a great deal of cleaning up to do in the news business. Underneath the blogosphere and comment muck alike there is real work and original reporting that can be brought to fruition. But the underlying question is via what medium? Paul Sagan and Tom Leighton state in The Internet & the future of news that “news is now personalized and interactive; the audience is taking charge.” If the news is becoming increasingly personalized, what keeps it (the news) from becoming accessed prevalently on the most personalized and portable devices out there?
The answer is, it doesn’t. As an adolescent product of the new media age, immediacy is a crucial components to the new news business. Though in recent years it has tended to be more about impulsive “immediacy” in general versus “immediacy” of original content, people want their news fast and they want to be able to access it with facility. In the internet ultimate takeover of news, the aesthetics of the reading experience is gone–we gravitate towards the screen to obtain our news. If the aesthetic and pleasurable experience of “reading the paper” is gone, who is to say that the future generations to come will want to spend time in front of a computer?
Living in a culture which celebrates and prides itself on Gordon Gecko sentiments of “greed is good,” American citizens tend to become greedy for efficient and yet aesthetically pleasing “all in one” features. On the novel cell phones of today’s age, phone’s are not merely for calling people. They now provide email services, instant messenger services, cameras, videocameras and maybe a telephone feature if you’re lucky. In Pew’s study of news platforms people use on a typical day, they reported that 26% of Americans get their news from time to time on their handheld device. However, when we isolate the segment of people who access the internet via their phones, we find that 88% of this group gets news at least occasionally on their mobile device.
In addition, the cellular news revolution is spreading. CNN recently announced a new section on its website where citizens can submit photos and videos of newsworthy events, something the ever-popular Youtube has been allowing users to do for some time. CNN’s citizen-posted videos, however, will be subject to editorial review by the network.
The cellular device is the most immediate, interactive and personalized medium to retrieve news. Journalists may feel threatened about the intrusion of ordinary citizens into their space, but in truth, ordinary citizens are covering MORE space. In addition, the interactivity their achieving is greater due to their presence on the ground. Most people in this day in age have a cell phone, not an iPad nor an ipod. Though American citizens are constantly foaming at the mouth for the new apple gadget, other countries are less dependent upon Steve Jobs’s digital dynasty. Why aren’t more people carrying an iPad, playing SNOOD (an game application offered on the iPad) while walking their dogs? Because one, these gadgets are not as portable as cellphones, and two, These devices are expensive and are only available to an exclusive largely affluent community. Microsoft software comes installed in DELL products, and these products supply a majority of the international community.
The citizen journalist must give thanks to the cellular device. Paul Bass had it right when he posed the question what is news? Is news about New Haven’s controversial local bicyclist laws found in a youtube video of a livid woman shrieking it at a bicyclist in her sidewalk path? Or is it a full hour of watching the attractive Anderson Cooper tell us about the 2 week countdown until the upcoming Royal Wedding. As professional news becomes flooded with this kind of entertainment news, I think it will be more in the hands of the citizen journalist. Or at least the job of the citizen journalist to steer the professional institutions in the right direction of what news is or rather what is vital to the people. The journalist’s future position will represent an array of minute operations starting from the ground up. Though large networks and mega news business institutions might effectively run the business operation itself, there will be more responsibility on the individual citizen to direct the content.
The future of news will rely heavily upon this citizen’s responsibility. So citizens of the world, it’s time to start setting your ringers on LOUD.
Great post Katie. Yes, I agree with you that there will, and already is, responsibility on the individual citizen to direct the content of the news. I believe that the way in which citizens are directing the news is through their youtube clips, mobile uploads and likes on facebook. Think about the variety of things that can be seen on a twitter account — tweets can range dramatically from commenting no whether or not Kate Middleton will wear her hair up to thoughts on Obama Care. It is the job of professional journalists and news reporters to look at citizen journalism at the most minute level (what we are tweeting, texting and facebooking about) and then turn it into broader more publicized journalism. Whether or not we know it, we are all doing our part to contribute to journalism.
So there are basically two different ideas here: first, the cell phone as a platform on which we access the news and, second, the cell phone as a democratic reporting device.
First, I’m cool with getting headlines on a phone or even *maybe* reading a short article, but reading an article with any kind of depth on a phone is totally obnoxious. If cell phones are going to be where we get our news, then our news is going to be shallower. It’s kind of a twitter scenario: there’s just less space. (You can tell me you scroll but I won’t believe you.)
But one of the great things about twitter the ability to link to longer things like articles and videos. To the extent that those can be accessed on a phone, cool. I do check my twitter feed on my phone sometimes, and of course twitter was modeled after the text message. But unless you’re monitoring a situation that changes minute-by-minute, short bits of information are just not the best. There’s no chance that you’ll get news with perspective on a phone.
As far as a reporting tool, I’m all for uploading pictures and videos and I’m all for having them screened by editors. I do believe that there will be more content generated as citizens start reporting with cell phones and therefore some good content generated that wouldn’t have been created before. But gosh darn, screening it all will be a lot of work. Wouldn’t it just be easier to expect the good ones to go viral? I can’t imagine the pain of screening people’s cell phone uploads all day. This is when I want crowdsourcing to do not just content generation but also content evaluation.
When I think about the global accessibility, which cell phones provide, I can’t help, but think the 360 degree turn our societies political means have come. Founded on the tenets of democracy, men of towns would vote upon decisions. Given their small numbers and accessibility by proximity, all men would vote. As our country grew and accessibility was not longer as present, representatives who would be accessible in Washington, D.C. were elected to vote on behalf of the population. Now we enter a time when citizens are not necessarily accessible by proximity, but are by technology. The ability for individuals to stay informed as well as communicate presents an interesting question. If security concerns can be resolved, will we once again return to a true democracy?