Tomorrow is the last day of the quarter, and it's time for me to reflect a bit about what I learned in this course. Here goes:
• I learned that no matter what, if you put something on the Internet about yourself, make it something you actually want people to know. All people. Potential employers, ex-boyfriends, parents; anybody. If it's there, people will find it.
• Some of the futuristic stuff we were afraid of will never happen. Some of it has already happened. All of those tv shows and movies that portrayed the future (The Jetsons, Back to the Future, etc.) were all right and all wrong. No I don't have a hoverboard or a robot maid, but I do have the Internet.
• Not everything on the Internet is true, especially not Wikipedia.
• Not everything on the Internet is real, especially not Wikipedia contributors.
• The first people figure out to make the Internet profitable are the people that didn't burst in the dot-com bubble.
• People either love or hate Andrew Keen. There is no middle ground.
• I can't think of any profession that cannot have some sort of affiliation with the Internet in the coming years. Not one. That's scary, but hopefully good.
So the future is here, and I studied it, and I wrote about it, and I learned I'll have to shape up and get used to it or there won't be a place for me in the communications field. There will still be a demand for writers and editors, just with slightly augmented skill sets. There will still be a demand for reference librarians and researchers. They will not be replaced by Google. I'm glad I know these things now, before it's too late for me.
I might occasionally still post here if I run across a particularly interesting snippet of new-media info and want to note it somewhere. We'll see! Bye!
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Notes from all over
A few news stories that piqued my new media interest lately. All are from the Times, except one, which makes me wonder if they really are the web-phobics Keen put them out to be.
A new method of television delivery?
E-mail forces better greeting cards.
The CD is 25.
"Digg or Die"; academia's "publish-or-perish" mentality meets the Internet.
BoingBoing continues to bash Andrew Keen. This time with Stephen Colbert.
And now, a story: I have been searching for an album by one Miss Alice Smith. Local stores tell me it's not possible to find. eBay doesn't have it for less than $40. None of the illegal downloading areas had it. It's stuck in a limbo of being a good album by a not-so-well-known artist that didn't sell so well when it came out last year and now is unavailable. But they have it on iTunes.
The point of this story is that in finding this album, I utilized several types of new media, and tracking it down would have been extremely difficult had these technological advancements never happened.
A song from the album was featured on an episode of the HBO series "Entourage," which I watch obsessively because it's very funny. (On a side note, apparently this show doesn't appeal to women because the women characters aren't prominent and the male characters can be chauvinistic jerks. I don't care. Funny is funny and people should recognize that.) Anyway, the song is played over the closing credits. I watched the show on digital cable on a Sunday night, when it first aired. Then, I watched it again during lunch on Tuesday utilizing the On Demand feature of my digital cable. I scanned the credits for the name of the song, but didn't find it, so I went to my computer and Googled a snippet of the lyrics I could remember along with "Entourage" and the title of the episode. This led me to Smith's MySpace page, where the song was available for listening, but not downloading. I listened to the four songs of hers on the site and decided I liked them enough to buy the album.
Here's where the New Media portions break down. You see, I wanted this CD right away. So instead of first scouring the web for it, I got into my car and drove to the local Best Buy. They didn't have it. Then I went to Barnes and Noble (to get a book, but I stopped by the music section and they told me it wasn't in their computer). Back at home, eBay had it for $44, with two days left to bid it up higher. Finally, I searched for it in iTunes, and there it was. For $9.99 I could have the whole album instantly on my computer. This was not exactly what I wanted.
You see, I am one of those dorky people that still collects vinyl record albums. I still buy CDs. I still listen to music on a stereo instead of just on my computer. I like to have an item to correspond with, an object to hold in my hands and liner notes to look through while I listen. Call me old fashioned, but there's something about the ephemeral nature of downloaded music that doesn't appeal to me. I mean, I know it's still music, but it isn't exactly the same. What if my computer crashed? What if I drop my iPod?
I ended up buying the album from iTunes and burning a CD immediately. It isn't the same though.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though new media and the internet and ecommerce and all of these things make certain things accessible that weren't before, it doesn't necessarily make them, or the experiences associated with them, any better. Going to record stores and book stores used to be a Saturday afternoon pasttime. My friends and I would flip through used albums and CDs for hours, then drive over to the used bookstores and do the same thing with pages. Now, we just type up things we want and have them shipped, new or used, straight to our houses. But we're missing the chase. We're missing happening upon something interesting by chance. We're missing the community aspect as well, since we don't do this together as a social outing anymore. We aren't squeezing it between breakfast out and a late matinee movie.
If I'd happened upon the Alice Smith CD in a used CD bin at a local store on this hypothetical Saturday afternoon, there would have been this tiny, thrilling moment when I saw it. I'd pick it up and open it, check out the liner notes and the disc for scratches. I'd take it to the counter and pay for it and maybe have a quippy conversation with the clerk. My friends and I would have listened to it in the car on the way to our next stop and talked about it, or the episode of "Entourage" that featured it. And sure, I can go online and comment about it on Smith's MySpace, or on the "Entourage" fan message boards, but something about that, like buying the album from iTunes, has an ephemeral quality that isn't endearing, but cheapening. If anything, this course has taught me to really appreciate the personal interactions the Internet has made unnecessary. Sure, I appreciate being able to find or buy just about anything from my own sofa, and the comfort in knowing that for a price, anything, even out-of-print CDs can be found with just clicks and keystrokes. But where did spontaneity go? What about happenstance?
A new method of television delivery?
E-mail forces better greeting cards.
The CD is 25.
"Digg or Die"; academia's "publish-or-perish" mentality meets the Internet.
BoingBoing continues to bash Andrew Keen. This time with Stephen Colbert.
And now, a story: I have been searching for an album by one Miss Alice Smith. Local stores tell me it's not possible to find. eBay doesn't have it for less than $40. None of the illegal downloading areas had it. It's stuck in a limbo of being a good album by a not-so-well-known artist that didn't sell so well when it came out last year and now is unavailable. But they have it on iTunes.
The point of this story is that in finding this album, I utilized several types of new media, and tracking it down would have been extremely difficult had these technological advancements never happened.
A song from the album was featured on an episode of the HBO series "Entourage," which I watch obsessively because it's very funny. (On a side note, apparently this show doesn't appeal to women because the women characters aren't prominent and the male characters can be chauvinistic jerks. I don't care. Funny is funny and people should recognize that.) Anyway, the song is played over the closing credits. I watched the show on digital cable on a Sunday night, when it first aired. Then, I watched it again during lunch on Tuesday utilizing the On Demand feature of my digital cable. I scanned the credits for the name of the song, but didn't find it, so I went to my computer and Googled a snippet of the lyrics I could remember along with "Entourage" and the title of the episode. This led me to Smith's MySpace page, where the song was available for listening, but not downloading. I listened to the four songs of hers on the site and decided I liked them enough to buy the album.
Here's where the New Media portions break down. You see, I wanted this CD right away. So instead of first scouring the web for it, I got into my car and drove to the local Best Buy. They didn't have it. Then I went to Barnes and Noble (to get a book, but I stopped by the music section and they told me it wasn't in their computer). Back at home, eBay had it for $44, with two days left to bid it up higher. Finally, I searched for it in iTunes, and there it was. For $9.99 I could have the whole album instantly on my computer. This was not exactly what I wanted.
You see, I am one of those dorky people that still collects vinyl record albums. I still buy CDs. I still listen to music on a stereo instead of just on my computer. I like to have an item to correspond with, an object to hold in my hands and liner notes to look through while I listen. Call me old fashioned, but there's something about the ephemeral nature of downloaded music that doesn't appeal to me. I mean, I know it's still music, but it isn't exactly the same. What if my computer crashed? What if I drop my iPod?
I ended up buying the album from iTunes and burning a CD immediately. It isn't the same though.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though new media and the internet and ecommerce and all of these things make certain things accessible that weren't before, it doesn't necessarily make them, or the experiences associated with them, any better. Going to record stores and book stores used to be a Saturday afternoon pasttime. My friends and I would flip through used albums and CDs for hours, then drive over to the used bookstores and do the same thing with pages. Now, we just type up things we want and have them shipped, new or used, straight to our houses. But we're missing the chase. We're missing happening upon something interesting by chance. We're missing the community aspect as well, since we don't do this together as a social outing anymore. We aren't squeezing it between breakfast out and a late matinee movie.
If I'd happened upon the Alice Smith CD in a used CD bin at a local store on this hypothetical Saturday afternoon, there would have been this tiny, thrilling moment when I saw it. I'd pick it up and open it, check out the liner notes and the disc for scratches. I'd take it to the counter and pay for it and maybe have a quippy conversation with the clerk. My friends and I would have listened to it in the car on the way to our next stop and talked about it, or the episode of "Entourage" that featured it. And sure, I can go online and comment about it on Smith's MySpace, or on the "Entourage" fan message boards, but something about that, like buying the album from iTunes, has an ephemeral quality that isn't endearing, but cheapening. If anything, this course has taught me to really appreciate the personal interactions the Internet has made unnecessary. Sure, I appreciate being able to find or buy just about anything from my own sofa, and the comfort in knowing that for a price, anything, even out-of-print CDs can be found with just clicks and keystrokes. But where did spontaneity go? What about happenstance?
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
the Me generation and the Web generation collide
Last year, I read a book called "Generation Me" by Jean M. Twenge. Dr. Twenge's book is about "Generation Me," or, as other people call it "the Entitlement Generation." This generation consists of people born during the 80s and 90s, many of whom are just now entering college. Basically, and this book includes me in this generation, since I was born in 1981, we want everything (high-paying flexible jobs, lots of free time, etc.) and don't want to work for it. (This perplexes me personally, and I would hate for a prospective employer to consider that I had these traits.) Anyway, Dr. Twenge's book, published just last year, has a conspicuous chunk missing: the Internet. The index does list a few occurrences of the word "Internet" in the book, but most of them are in passing.
I'm re-reading this book right now to prepare to teach college freshmen how to write essays. I start tomorrow, and I'm pretty nervous, and this book isn't helping. According to this book, my students will be spoiled brats that have never worked hard. The last chapter has sections on how employers and marketers can use this information about this generation, butt nothing specifically for educators. There is a section that says parents shouldn't brow-beat their Gen-Me-er into college, and a section that says parents shouldn't be obsessive about their child's self-esteem being high at any cost. Yesterday in my faculty orientation, we had a discussion about FERPA. FERPA says that professors are not allowed to discuss grades (or other information) with a students' parent without permission. Apparently, lots of parents get the professor's phone number from the syllabus and call professors, demanding information about their children's grades or attendance. While it would be illegal for the professor to do so, the parents don't quit.
These are the parents obsessed with what their kids are doing on MySpace and Facebook. These are the parents watching the Dateline "To Catch A Predator" specials in fear. These are what college administrators call "helicopter parents," and why others call the cell phone "the world's longest umbilical cord." Where was this parental paranoia ten years ago when I was getting ready for college?
I believe there IS a connection to be made from the Internet to this phenomenon. It's clear. Because of the Internet, these parents see their children as taking freedoms before they really deserve them, so the parents, in turn, hold on to the freedoms they should be letting go of.
I'm re-reading this book right now to prepare to teach college freshmen how to write essays. I start tomorrow, and I'm pretty nervous, and this book isn't helping. According to this book, my students will be spoiled brats that have never worked hard. The last chapter has sections on how employers and marketers can use this information about this generation, butt nothing specifically for educators. There is a section that says parents shouldn't brow-beat their Gen-Me-er into college, and a section that says parents shouldn't be obsessive about their child's self-esteem being high at any cost. Yesterday in my faculty orientation, we had a discussion about FERPA. FERPA says that professors are not allowed to discuss grades (or other information) with a students' parent without permission. Apparently, lots of parents get the professor's phone number from the syllabus and call professors, demanding information about their children's grades or attendance. While it would be illegal for the professor to do so, the parents don't quit.
These are the parents obsessed with what their kids are doing on MySpace and Facebook. These are the parents watching the Dateline "To Catch A Predator" specials in fear. These are what college administrators call "helicopter parents," and why others call the cell phone "the world's longest umbilical cord." Where was this parental paranoia ten years ago when I was getting ready for college?
I believe there IS a connection to be made from the Internet to this phenomenon. It's clear. Because of the Internet, these parents see their children as taking freedoms before they really deserve them, so the parents, in turn, hold on to the freedoms they should be letting go of.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
conversations at work
The director of another college communications department in the office where I work came to my office on Tuesday looking puzzled. He was carrying an older issue of the student newspaper I advise. As I often see people carrying that newspaper and looking puzzled, I wasn't alarmed.
"So," he said, "Did you read this?"
I draw in a deep breath to start my well-rehearsed spiel about how I do not read the paper before it is printed because that isn't ethical and ... I realize he's pointing to a word in a letter to the editor. And that word is "Wikipedia." In the letter, a student is pointing out an error in a previous student newspaper article. The letter-writer suggests that the newspaper editors should have looked at Wikipedia.
"Do you think they get the irony here?" he asked me.
"No. I don't," I said, sighing.
He looked at me puzzled.
"People don't know what they don't care to know. And obviously, people don't care to know that Wikipedia isn't exactly 100% credible."
He mumbles something about teenagers, and I shot him a look. "No, no, adults too."
He rolls his eyes, obviously remembering adults, seemingly informationally-savvy adults that are also swindled by Wikipedia.
I pull Andrew Keen's book from my bag and hold it out to him. In what felt like a spiritual moment in the religion of information, he took it.
"He understands," I said.
My visitor returned yesterday, singing Keen's praises. I said hold on, look at this. I showed him where yesterday, BoingBoing.com called Keen a "professional troll and spokesdouche for internet-fearing reactionaries."
We discussed, and realized that yeah, of course BoingBoing is going to react that way, because BoingBoing's whole position is Internet=everything great about culture. It's almost as if your position defines your opinions on everything. I'm a journalist, a dyed-in-the-wool pen-and-paper journalist, so of course I think the Internet is a bit overrated. But I'm charged with churning out the next generation of journalists because I'm a newspaper adviser (and now also an English professor), so doesn't that position demand I be a steward of technology, no matter how useless it might be?
Bottom line: it's bells-and-whistles vs. meat-and-potatoes. Until they can figure out how to fill those Internet bells with meat, I'm not buying.
"So," he said, "Did you read this?"
I draw in a deep breath to start my well-rehearsed spiel about how I do not read the paper before it is printed because that isn't ethical and ... I realize he's pointing to a word in a letter to the editor. And that word is "Wikipedia." In the letter, a student is pointing out an error in a previous student newspaper article. The letter-writer suggests that the newspaper editors should have looked at Wikipedia.
"Do you think they get the irony here?" he asked me.
"No. I don't," I said, sighing.
He looked at me puzzled.
"People don't know what they don't care to know. And obviously, people don't care to know that Wikipedia isn't exactly 100% credible."
He mumbles something about teenagers, and I shot him a look. "No, no, adults too."
He rolls his eyes, obviously remembering adults, seemingly informationally-savvy adults that are also swindled by Wikipedia.
I pull Andrew Keen's book from my bag and hold it out to him. In what felt like a spiritual moment in the religion of information, he took it.
"He understands," I said.
My visitor returned yesterday, singing Keen's praises. I said hold on, look at this. I showed him where yesterday, BoingBoing.com called Keen a "professional troll and spokesdouche for internet-fearing reactionaries."
We discussed, and realized that yeah, of course BoingBoing is going to react that way, because BoingBoing's whole position is Internet=everything great about culture. It's almost as if your position defines your opinions on everything. I'm a journalist, a dyed-in-the-wool pen-and-paper journalist, so of course I think the Internet is a bit overrated. But I'm charged with churning out the next generation of journalists because I'm a newspaper adviser (and now also an English professor), so doesn't that position demand I be a steward of technology, no matter how useless it might be?
Bottom line: it's bells-and-whistles vs. meat-and-potatoes. Until they can figure out how to fill those Internet bells with meat, I'm not buying.
Monday, August 6, 2007
the unpopular opinion (paper) DRAFT
This is a rough draft of a position-type editorial article for people who do my job: college media advisers. My goal was to argue the unpopular side of a popular argument, that college media needs to produce many different types of media in their newsgathering and presentation functions (i.e. web video, audio and story packages) for every story. Please note that not only is this a draft (my opinions and support statements aren't 100% fleshed out), this is not an attack on any of the people mentioned, but a discussion of their ideas and my ideas.
Bryan Murley is a man on a mission. Since a last-minute session at the fall college media conference in 2005, Murley has been the go-to guy for all things new media. His blog, Innovation in College Media, has become required reading for college media advisers everywhere and his analysis of emerging trends in new media convergence in college news operations are spot on. Just yesterday he reminded us we need to have some sort of video plan for our reporters and photojournalists right now. Anybody can see that much of consumer newsgathering is done on the web nowadays, or at least, not in the ink-and-paper newspaper format, but does that necessarily mean college newspapers need to become multiplatform multimedia news delivery systems overnight? Or at all?
Labeled as anti-technology in 2007 is definitely an unpopular place to be. Nobody knows this better than Andrew Keen. His book “The Cult of the Amateur” has put him on the hit list of every pro-Web blogger and commentator on the Web, but his opinions and ideas are at least giving people something to think about as they forage ahead into new media territory. Keen’s theory is simple: more voices does not necessarily equal quality information. He frequently compares the “chatter” on the Internet to T.H. Huxley’s “infinite monkey theorem,” where infinite monkeys have infinite typewriters and one eventually creates a masterpiece. In the pre-Internet age (T.H. Huxley died in 1895), the concept of infinite monkeys on typewriters seemed like a mathematical joke, but now, with the Internet, it seems more like a sad metaphor. Keen says this joke has become a reality. We are the monkeys, chattering away on our typewriters, but none of us are creating a masterpiece yet. It should be noted here that T.H.’s grandson, Aldous Huxley, wrote the dystopian future in the novel Brave New World in 1932.
Keen’s argument goes on for more than 200 pages, showing us the crimes committed by Web 2.0 against talent, authorship, intellectual property laws, musicianship, advertising revenue and journalists. Journalists, traditionally educated craftsmen, are being muscled out because … well, because of a lot of things. They’re fond of blaming the Internet. Craigslist and Yahoo are stealing their ad revenue, which pays their salaries. Wikipedia and celebrity gossip sites are stealing their readers. Google News is taking their content. The Economist says that over the next few decades, half of the newspapers will go under. Keen bundles this idea by attacking the most famous newspaper in the United States: The New York Times. According to Michael Wolff, a journalist, for the Times to generate its print revenue, they’d either have to reach 400-500 million online readers or compromise their editorial content to please potential advertisers. Granted, this is The New York Times, not your average university weekly tabloid. But not even the Times would able to seamlessly abandon it’s paper pages for web pages “At best,” Wolff says,” it might become a specialized Internet player … a low-end, high-volume information producer.” What does that sound like? Oh yeah, Wikipedia.
Even the most thorough and cutting-edge Webophiles will confess to having their doubts about Wikipedia. If you’re looking for the infinite monkey theorem at work, this is where to find it. It’s flaw, however, isn’t that it can be edited by anyone from Harvard professors to Harvard janitors, but that it doesn’t take any particular talent to contribute. Journalists are celebrated for their storytelling ability and creativity. How you tell a story is your selling point. That you can tell it better than anybody else is your ticket to a journalism job. Wikipedia fails here because it doesn’t really tell stories, and those it does tell, like Wikipedia entries on news and current events, are dull, bland, play-by-play lists devoid of any sort of analysis or insight. Why? Because analysis and insight aren’t appropriate for the encyclopedia medium. There’s an old saying in radio, from back when most news couldn’t be reported live on the radio, that they can just wait a day and make it analysis. Are we sacrificing the analysis to get things earlier? Is that worth it? Is this happening in college media? Is that worth it?
Lots of people think so. Journalism professors and college media advisers alike seem to agree that loading their students with as many different skills possible will make them more viable in the shrinking journalism job market. Ryan Sholin, a new media blogger and graduate student at San Jose State University says it’s clear, “J-schools can either play a critical role in training the next generation of journalists, or they can fade into irrelevancy.” That’s a steep order. He also says “Reporters need to do more than write. The new world calls for a new skill set, and you and Mr. Notebook need to make some new friends, like Mr. Microphone and Mr. Point & Shoot.” Steeper still. Think of your average journalism-school freshman. Jenny Freshman wrote a few articles for her high school paper and wants to be a journalism student to refine her writing skills. Too bad. Jenny has to be a radio producer, photographer, videographer, anchor, editor, web designer and maybe do some writing in between. The jack-of-all-trades journalist model might be appropriate for a senior student looking at job options, but for the freshman, or the first-time contributor to a college student newspaper, it isn’t a realistic starting place.
The flip-side negative of being a jack-of-all-trades, like some believe all journalists (or at least journalists that will keep their jobs in the next ten years) should become, is that it’s hard to focus and refine a skill when you’re always trying to add more. Plus, it’s hard to develop new skills without strong foundation skills. Let’s go back to Jenny Freshman, who’s trying to write her first lead. In a supportive learning environment, she should get ample time to craft a strong print lead, through thorough trial-and-error. Once she gets that skill, it’s a lot easier to then teach her to modify that lead for radio or television or the web. It’s harder to try to teach leads across platforms because you have no foundation skill (like writing a print lead) to build from. Just like this lead example, in early reporting classes, students should be learning how to tell stories the easiest way, through writing, just like they’ve been writing essays and papers throughout their educational careers. By building on those skills, early print reporting classes can help transition students into journalistic writing. Once they get a solid foundation in journalistic storytelling, they can easily translate those skills into different media. Another drawback of this jack-of-all-trades model is the lack of specialization. There’s no reward for being exceptionally good at any journalistic skill if everyone is expected to be competent in many areas. For example, when I was in journalism school, I was a good reporter, but only a mediocre copy editor. Luckily, I knew people that were and we could help each other. There is something to be said for specialization and roles in team projects. If you worked at a newspaper, the same staff member wouldn’t be taking the photos, writing the stories, designing the paper, cleaning the office and selling the ads. It makes more sense for the best photographer to take the photos, the best designer to layout the pages and the best salespeople to sell the ads. Plus, it gives people, especially students, a sense of identity to figure out what area they’re best at and what area they want to pursue. This way they can focus their energy and really excel in that area, instead of being too busy trying to be competent in everything.
As educators, we also must be mindful of what the students want out of the experience. This is different at every college. A journalism-school student at a large public school with an established daily college paper may need, or want, skills that a student editor at a weekly tabloid at a fine arts college may not. Likewise, students at that large university may expect different things from their college newspaper than students at the small art college. Advisers are always preaching audience appropriateness, and it should extend even to this area. If your student body wants in-depth, multimedia coverage of campus events, give it to them. But if your students aren’t interested, and would just like a newspaper to read while they’re waiting for class to start, you shouldn’t do unnecessary work that won’t be appreciated. Additionally, this work could detract effort from your existing product, and further harm your relationship to your readers. The readers come first, and in college student media, it’s easier to find out what they want. As advisers and educators, though, we must also uphold certain standards of quality. If students aren’t building their foundational skills as writers and reporters, we must be the ones to help them focus. Like Keen says, having more monkeys at more typewriters (and in this case, additional monkeys with typewriters, cameras, videocameras, audio recorders and web design software) doesn’t necessarily mean quality work will come out of it. Quality is the top priority here, and producing quality work should be every student media organization’s goal.
Even if you don’t agree with everything Keen has to say, hopefully you can agree with this. Keen says, early on, “Talent, as ever is a limited resource, the needle in today’s digital haystack.” Is our obligation as college media advisers to make those needles, or the haystack of mediocrity? Is our obligation to make signal or noise? Is our profession going to literally be in the hands of the typewriting monkeys? We have the power to stop this from happening. We have the power to train the new generation to be needles instead of hay, and, more importantly, to know the difference.
Bryan Murley is a man on a mission. Since a last-minute session at the fall college media conference in 2005, Murley has been the go-to guy for all things new media. His blog, Innovation in College Media, has become required reading for college media advisers everywhere and his analysis of emerging trends in new media convergence in college news operations are spot on. Just yesterday he reminded us we need to have some sort of video plan for our reporters and photojournalists right now. Anybody can see that much of consumer newsgathering is done on the web nowadays, or at least, not in the ink-and-paper newspaper format, but does that necessarily mean college newspapers need to become multiplatform multimedia news delivery systems overnight? Or at all?
Labeled as anti-technology in 2007 is definitely an unpopular place to be. Nobody knows this better than Andrew Keen. His book “The Cult of the Amateur” has put him on the hit list of every pro-Web blogger and commentator on the Web, but his opinions and ideas are at least giving people something to think about as they forage ahead into new media territory. Keen’s theory is simple: more voices does not necessarily equal quality information. He frequently compares the “chatter” on the Internet to T.H. Huxley’s “infinite monkey theorem,” where infinite monkeys have infinite typewriters and one eventually creates a masterpiece. In the pre-Internet age (T.H. Huxley died in 1895), the concept of infinite monkeys on typewriters seemed like a mathematical joke, but now, with the Internet, it seems more like a sad metaphor. Keen says this joke has become a reality. We are the monkeys, chattering away on our typewriters, but none of us are creating a masterpiece yet. It should be noted here that T.H.’s grandson, Aldous Huxley, wrote the dystopian future in the novel Brave New World in 1932.
Keen’s argument goes on for more than 200 pages, showing us the crimes committed by Web 2.0 against talent, authorship, intellectual property laws, musicianship, advertising revenue and journalists. Journalists, traditionally educated craftsmen, are being muscled out because … well, because of a lot of things. They’re fond of blaming the Internet. Craigslist and Yahoo are stealing their ad revenue, which pays their salaries. Wikipedia and celebrity gossip sites are stealing their readers. Google News is taking their content. The Economist says that over the next few decades, half of the newspapers will go under. Keen bundles this idea by attacking the most famous newspaper in the United States: The New York Times. According to Michael Wolff, a journalist, for the Times to generate its print revenue, they’d either have to reach 400-500 million online readers or compromise their editorial content to please potential advertisers. Granted, this is The New York Times, not your average university weekly tabloid. But not even the Times would able to seamlessly abandon it’s paper pages for web pages “At best,” Wolff says,” it might become a specialized Internet player … a low-end, high-volume information producer.” What does that sound like? Oh yeah, Wikipedia.
Even the most thorough and cutting-edge Webophiles will confess to having their doubts about Wikipedia. If you’re looking for the infinite monkey theorem at work, this is where to find it. It’s flaw, however, isn’t that it can be edited by anyone from Harvard professors to Harvard janitors, but that it doesn’t take any particular talent to contribute. Journalists are celebrated for their storytelling ability and creativity. How you tell a story is your selling point. That you can tell it better than anybody else is your ticket to a journalism job. Wikipedia fails here because it doesn’t really tell stories, and those it does tell, like Wikipedia entries on news and current events, are dull, bland, play-by-play lists devoid of any sort of analysis or insight. Why? Because analysis and insight aren’t appropriate for the encyclopedia medium. There’s an old saying in radio, from back when most news couldn’t be reported live on the radio, that they can just wait a day and make it analysis. Are we sacrificing the analysis to get things earlier? Is that worth it? Is this happening in college media? Is that worth it?
Lots of people think so. Journalism professors and college media advisers alike seem to agree that loading their students with as many different skills possible will make them more viable in the shrinking journalism job market. Ryan Sholin, a new media blogger and graduate student at San Jose State University says it’s clear, “J-schools can either play a critical role in training the next generation of journalists, or they can fade into irrelevancy.” That’s a steep order. He also says “Reporters need to do more than write. The new world calls for a new skill set, and you and Mr. Notebook need to make some new friends, like Mr. Microphone and Mr. Point & Shoot.” Steeper still. Think of your average journalism-school freshman. Jenny Freshman wrote a few articles for her high school paper and wants to be a journalism student to refine her writing skills. Too bad. Jenny has to be a radio producer, photographer, videographer, anchor, editor, web designer and maybe do some writing in between. The jack-of-all-trades journalist model might be appropriate for a senior student looking at job options, but for the freshman, or the first-time contributor to a college student newspaper, it isn’t a realistic starting place.
The flip-side negative of being a jack-of-all-trades, like some believe all journalists (or at least journalists that will keep their jobs in the next ten years) should become, is that it’s hard to focus and refine a skill when you’re always trying to add more. Plus, it’s hard to develop new skills without strong foundation skills. Let’s go back to Jenny Freshman, who’s trying to write her first lead. In a supportive learning environment, she should get ample time to craft a strong print lead, through thorough trial-and-error. Once she gets that skill, it’s a lot easier to then teach her to modify that lead for radio or television or the web. It’s harder to try to teach leads across platforms because you have no foundation skill (like writing a print lead) to build from. Just like this lead example, in early reporting classes, students should be learning how to tell stories the easiest way, through writing, just like they’ve been writing essays and papers throughout their educational careers. By building on those skills, early print reporting classes can help transition students into journalistic writing. Once they get a solid foundation in journalistic storytelling, they can easily translate those skills into different media. Another drawback of this jack-of-all-trades model is the lack of specialization. There’s no reward for being exceptionally good at any journalistic skill if everyone is expected to be competent in many areas. For example, when I was in journalism school, I was a good reporter, but only a mediocre copy editor. Luckily, I knew people that were and we could help each other. There is something to be said for specialization and roles in team projects. If you worked at a newspaper, the same staff member wouldn’t be taking the photos, writing the stories, designing the paper, cleaning the office and selling the ads. It makes more sense for the best photographer to take the photos, the best designer to layout the pages and the best salespeople to sell the ads. Plus, it gives people, especially students, a sense of identity to figure out what area they’re best at and what area they want to pursue. This way they can focus their energy and really excel in that area, instead of being too busy trying to be competent in everything.
As educators, we also must be mindful of what the students want out of the experience. This is different at every college. A journalism-school student at a large public school with an established daily college paper may need, or want, skills that a student editor at a weekly tabloid at a fine arts college may not. Likewise, students at that large university may expect different things from their college newspaper than students at the small art college. Advisers are always preaching audience appropriateness, and it should extend even to this area. If your student body wants in-depth, multimedia coverage of campus events, give it to them. But if your students aren’t interested, and would just like a newspaper to read while they’re waiting for class to start, you shouldn’t do unnecessary work that won’t be appreciated. Additionally, this work could detract effort from your existing product, and further harm your relationship to your readers. The readers come first, and in college student media, it’s easier to find out what they want. As advisers and educators, though, we must also uphold certain standards of quality. If students aren’t building their foundational skills as writers and reporters, we must be the ones to help them focus. Like Keen says, having more monkeys at more typewriters (and in this case, additional monkeys with typewriters, cameras, videocameras, audio recorders and web design software) doesn’t necessarily mean quality work will come out of it. Quality is the top priority here, and producing quality work should be every student media organization’s goal.
Even if you don’t agree with everything Keen has to say, hopefully you can agree with this. Keen says, early on, “Talent, as ever is a limited resource, the needle in today’s digital haystack.” Is our obligation as college media advisers to make those needles, or the haystack of mediocrity? Is our obligation to make signal or noise? Is our profession going to literally be in the hands of the typewriting monkeys? We have the power to stop this from happening. We have the power to train the new generation to be needles instead of hay, and, more importantly, to know the difference.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
internet personality
Today, while I was on Facebook, I came across an interesting application. Recently, Facebook has added tons of applications; things you can add to your Facebook profile. I added an application called "Scrabulous," which lets me play Scrabble through Facebook with my other friends on Facebook, and an application called "Personal DNA." Basically, the Personal DNA application is a personality test. It's a well-designed (i.e. pretty), interactive test that lets you rank personal preferences and then it gives you an outcome. The scary thing is that it's dead accurate.
My results are here:
If you click on to read them, it basically says I'm exactly like myself. It says I'm self-reliant, generous, practical and hard-working. What I'm wondering though, is did I know this before the Internet told me?
In high school career ed class, we took the Myers-Briggs type indicator. I was an INTJ. This was in 1998. I re-took it today, on the Internet, and I'm still an INTJ. I feel like this is pretty accurate as well. To further test the accuracy, I had a friend take it. I've known this person for about seven years, and he's never taken a test like this. He's also an INTJ, and that's pretty accurate as well. It's strange, though, because I recognize these traits in him and in myself, but I didn't really ever think of us as similar. I probably could have come to this conclusion without the Internet as well.
So, I did all this, and realized that it's just another way, like Facebook, or MySpace to read and write and talk about myself. Now I feel like I was swindled by the Internet. It tricks me into thinking I'm special and interesting, when really, I'm just another person taking an online personality test. While this isn't exactly Web 2.0, it's sort of a stepping stone between Web and Web 2.0. It's less committal than MySpace or Facebook, because you aren't forced to share your results, but it still engages you in a kind of self-focus that many Web 2.0 things focus on.
My results are here:
If you click on to read them, it basically says I'm exactly like myself. It says I'm self-reliant, generous, practical and hard-working. What I'm wondering though, is did I know this before the Internet told me?
In high school career ed class, we took the Myers-Briggs type indicator. I was an INTJ. This was in 1998. I re-took it today, on the Internet, and I'm still an INTJ. I feel like this is pretty accurate as well. To further test the accuracy, I had a friend take it. I've known this person for about seven years, and he's never taken a test like this. He's also an INTJ, and that's pretty accurate as well. It's strange, though, because I recognize these traits in him and in myself, but I didn't really ever think of us as similar. I probably could have come to this conclusion without the Internet as well.
So, I did all this, and realized that it's just another way, like Facebook, or MySpace to read and write and talk about myself. Now I feel like I was swindled by the Internet. It tricks me into thinking I'm special and interesting, when really, I'm just another person taking an online personality test. While this isn't exactly Web 2.0, it's sort of a stepping stone between Web and Web 2.0. It's less committal than MySpace or Facebook, because you aren't forced to share your results, but it still engages you in a kind of self-focus that many Web 2.0 things focus on.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Keen and The Liquid Library
I think one of the reasons I’m having a hard time dissecting this Keen book is the sheer amount of information crammed into it. For example, I just read a short section (not even a chapter, like a sub-chapter) called “The Liquid Library” that was about four pages, but it gave me so much to think about and discuss.
The section is about Kevin Kelly, who Keen calls a “Silicon Valley utopian.” “Kelley wants to kill off the book entirely,” Keen writes. “As well as the intellectual property rights of writers and publishers.”
Doesn’t that sound like Keen is being a little harsh? Well, it’s pretty true. In a 2006 New York Times Magazine article, Kelly basically said he wants all of literature to be on the web and “cross-linked, clustered, cited, extracted, indexed, analyzed, annotated, remixed, reassembled, and woven deeper into the culture than ever before.” Wow. To Kelly, it means “a web of names and a community of ideas.” To Keen, it means “the death of culture.”
Both of these arguments are hard to swallow whole because both of these guys are playing in the extremes. I think that’s where all of these arguments for and against Web 2.0 break down. When you say something as incendiary as “no more intellectual property rights,” it’s easy to attract a deluge of naysayers, and it’s equally true if you say something as incendiary as “Web 2.0 will kill culture.” Haven’t these people ever heard of balance?
I’m guessing this is where so much of the criticism and anti-Keen backlash is coming from. He’s one of those all-or-nothing kind of guys. He’s throwing out the baby with the bathwater, along with the bathtub and maybe even the whole bathroom. And even if Keen is wrong, or a blustering Goliath, he’s successfully stirring up debate and thought on what will be the long-term effects of the shift from regular old Internet to Web 2.0. That can’t be discounted.
I can’t wait to read who he attacks next.
The section is about Kevin Kelly, who Keen calls a “Silicon Valley utopian.” “Kelley wants to kill off the book entirely,” Keen writes. “As well as the intellectual property rights of writers and publishers.”
Doesn’t that sound like Keen is being a little harsh? Well, it’s pretty true. In a 2006 New York Times Magazine article, Kelly basically said he wants all of literature to be on the web and “cross-linked, clustered, cited, extracted, indexed, analyzed, annotated, remixed, reassembled, and woven deeper into the culture than ever before.” Wow. To Kelly, it means “a web of names and a community of ideas.” To Keen, it means “the death of culture.”
Both of these arguments are hard to swallow whole because both of these guys are playing in the extremes. I think that’s where all of these arguments for and against Web 2.0 break down. When you say something as incendiary as “no more intellectual property rights,” it’s easy to attract a deluge of naysayers, and it’s equally true if you say something as incendiary as “Web 2.0 will kill culture.” Haven’t these people ever heard of balance?
I’m guessing this is where so much of the criticism and anti-Keen backlash is coming from. He’s one of those all-or-nothing kind of guys. He’s throwing out the baby with the bathwater, along with the bathtub and maybe even the whole bathroom. And even if Keen is wrong, or a blustering Goliath, he’s successfully stirring up debate and thought on what will be the long-term effects of the shift from regular old Internet to Web 2.0. That can’t be discounted.
I can’t wait to read who he attacks next.
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