New Media & Media Convergence Flashcards
WHAT IS NEW ABOUT NEW MEDIA?
List of technological developments …DVD – Blue Ray - DVBT Technological developments within cultural processes Domestic diffusion and appropriation in a society
“All media were once ‘new media’ [and] emergent media may be seen as instances of both risk and potential”.
WHAT IS NEW ABOUT
NEW MEDIA?: apperance of term
The term “new media” used since the 1960s, but gained renown in the mid-1990´s (along with dotcom, cyberspace, interactive television).
A “negative“ definition to signal that it was not mass media, but a fluid, individualized connectivity, a medium to distribute control and freedom.
New media – emerged as epoch-making phenomena – are part of a larger landscape of social, technological and cultural change.
A useful and inclusive ‘portmanteau‘ term which avoids reducing new media to technical or more specialist terms.
MEANING OF „NEW“…
new equals better
it’s the cutting edge
place for forward-thinking people
new means social progresses delivered by technology
New media – increased productivity and educational opportunities
celebration and incessant promotion of new media
But… who was dissatisfied with „old“ media – and are there no negative aspects?
DISADVANTAGES OF NEW MEDIA
- INFORMATION OVERLOAD AND CREDIBILITY ISSUES
- PRIVACY AND SECURITY CONCERNS
- SHORT ATTENTION SPANS
- DIGITAL DIVIDE
- EPHEMERAL CONTENT LEADING TO CONTENT SATURATION
NEW MEDIA REFER TO…
- New textual experiences: Emojis, Memes…Computer Games,
- New ways of representing the world: New Experiences: e.g. Virtual Environment
- New relationships between subjects (users & consumers) and media technologies: Changes use + reception
- New experiences of the relationship between embodiment, identity, and community: Selfexpression, community
- New conceptions of the biological body’s relationship to technological media: Distinctions between the human and artificial –VRTechnologies – Instagram… - effects – psychological, physiological - wearable devices, implantable technologies,
- New patterns of organization and production: Wider realignments – media culture, industry, economy, ownership - decentralization…
Developing fields of
technologically mediated production
Each one of these new {on the previous slide} elements are represented through a whole array of rapidly developing fields of technologically mediated production (user-generated content), including:
CHARACTERISTICS
OF NEW MEDIA
digital
interactive
hypertextual
networked
virtual
simulated
OLD VERSUS NEW CONCEPTUAL
MODELS (POSTER, M. 1995): scheme
MARSHALL MCLUHAN (1911-1980)
- Canadian literary and media theorist
- Author of The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), Understanding Media (1964)
- Use of aphorisms (for e.g., ‘the global village’ and ‘the medium is the message’).
- Rose to prominence in the 1960s
BROAD UNDERSTANDING OF “MEDIUM”
- Medium as what is in between (from Latin “medium,” literally ‘middle’)
- Voice, air, even electric light are media
THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE
“Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media with which men communicate than by the content of the communication.”
“MEDIUM WITHOUT A MESSAGE”
Except for the electric light in its pure form: the electric light only has content when used to illuminate or action something
KEY IDEAS of MCLUHAN
The medium is the message.
Media and technologies are extensions of the human body and its senses: New media change the way we think and we perceive things.
The content of any medium is always another medium: „The content of writing is speech, just as the written word is the content of print, and print is the content of the telegraph.“
Process: ➢ Book – basic for theater ➢ Theater – basic for the content of a film
THE GLOBAL VILLAGE
“The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village”
MARSHALL’S FOUR CULTURES
- a primitive culture of oral communication;
- a literate culture (handwritten script co-existing with oral);
- the age of mass-produced, mechanical printing;
- the culture of ‘electric media’: radio, television, and computers.
RAYMOND WILLIAMS
(1921-1988)
- Welsh, education in literature
- One of the founding figures of British media and cultural studies
- Author of Culture and Society (1958), The Long Revolution (1961), Television: Technology and Cultural form (1974)
- Criticizes McLuhan’s “technological determinism”
CRITICISM ON
TECHNOLOGICAL
DETERMINISM
Technology is considered an autonomous agent of historical change
Necessity to consider also other elements such as social uses
Example: “the Internet has altered our world.” What does it mean?
REFUSAL OF ALL FORMS OF DETERMINISM
Williams: both views should be refused since they imply that technology is isolated rather than being in constant relation with social change.
A THIRD SOLUTION to Internet-Society issue
- Study of technology and society as things that are in constant relationship with each other
- Technology informs society and society informs technology
- Technology is not an autonomous force of history → role of intention in the process of technological and media change
EXAMPLE: TELEVISION
- Technical inventions: photography, motion picture, radio transmission, cathode tubes, …
- Socially instituted technology: “television” as a broadcasting system
- Cultural forms: TV programmes, genres, etc.
SUMMARY:
1. New media is portraying traditional (mass) media as
2. New media is inclusive –that means it
3. New media is not analogue
4. New media is interactive –
- New media is portraying traditional (mass) media as
- fluid, individualized
connectivity, a medium to distribute control
and freedom.
- epoch-making
phenomena – are part of a larger landscape of social, technological and cultural change.
In simple terms, new media is showing traditional media as more flexible, personalized, and giving individuals more control and freedom in how they connect and share information. It is seen as a significant and revolutionary development that is part of broader changes in society, technology, and culture.
- New media is inclusive – that
means it avoids reducing new media to technical or more specialist terms - New media is not analogue – it’s …
- New media is interactive – it means ’s it’s more a 2 way process.
Impact of technology on Journalism
- Strengthening democracy
- Dissemination of false information
- Shaping the content we consume significantly
- Questioning the sustainability (viability) of traditional media
- Worsened the quality of journalism
- Leads to a fragmented society
HOW JOURNALISTS
„DID (?) THEIR JOB
- “I can write better than anyone who can write faster, and faster than anyone who can write better.”
- (A. J. Liebling, American journalist, The New Yorker, 1904-1963)
Pavlik: Implications of Emerging Technology for Journalism, Media and Society
These implications fall into four broad areas of media transformation:
- First is how media professionals do their work, especially in the process of creating content (e.g., the digital transformation of news gathering with a world-wide and nearly ubiquitous mobile citizen reporter work-force).
- Second is the transformation of storytelling. Interactivity, immersiveness and three-dimensionality are among the ways storytelling is changing, both in news and entertainment media. Video games and other media forms are increasingly finding online, community-based usage. Geo-location and other new capabilities are set to drive further transformations in media content.
- Third are organizational, cultural and managerial transformations. Among the first seen in this regard are shifts in funding for media organizations as well as new management structures that engage cloud computing.
- Fourth are shifts in the relationship between media and the public. This vital relationship is undergoing a fundamental transformation, particularly with the rise of mobile and social media.
HOW JOURNALISTS USE THE INTERNET
- (Almost) all journalists now use online tools for researching and reporting.
- Websites are playing a significant role in delivering information to media.
- Obtaining story ideas
- Gathering images and other materials
- Networking – Exchange of information
ICFJ REPORT – 2019 THE STATE OF TECHNOLOGY IN GLOBAL NEWSROOMS
Journalists are increasing their use of technology:
- More than two-thirds of journalists and newsrooms secure their communications.
- More than half of journalists regularly use digital tools to fact-check information.
- One-third of news organizations have dedicated factcheckers on staff.
- More than twice as many journalists use social media verification tools today as did two years ago
HOW JOURNALISTS DO THEIR JOB – NEW ASPECTS
- Use Online, VJ…
- Coding and Programming
- Data Driven
Journalism - Data Analytics
- Drone journalism
- AI: * recommendation technology * voice recognition * and media automation
- Automatic text generation
- AUTOMATED JOURNALISM
ICFJ Report – 2019: social media
- Journalists are overwhelmingly more likely to use social media to engage and grow their audiences than any other tool
- Only 11% of journalists use social media verification tools, though most (71%) use social media to find new story ideas.
- More than half of journalists (54%) and newsrooms (52%) fail to secure their communications.
“Technological
determinism” vs. “Symptomatic
technology”
“Technological
determinism”
Technology as cause
E.g.: the introduction of the Internet has resulted in new forms of political participation.
“Symptomatic
technology”
Technology as symptom, as byproduct of social change
E.g.: the Internet is the result of the emergence of a social need for new forms of public spheres.
Study of technology and society as things
that are in constant relationship with each other (technology not
isolated)
Impact of technology on journalism
- Shaping the content we consume significantly
- Strengthening democracy
- Dissemination of false information
- Questioning the sustainability (viability) of traditional media
- Leads to a fragmented society
- Worsened the quality of journalism
IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON JOURNALISM: Pavlik
- How journalists do their job
- Nature of news content
- Structure and organization within media companies
- Nature of relations between and among news organizations and their publics
The players in the creator ecomony
- Creators: content creators, bloggers and influencers
- Platforms: services and tools to build, distribute, and monetize content
- Rightholders: music, video, movie, entertainment and digital content rightsholders - artists, musicians and labels, producers, publishers, authors
Robot Journalism: Can human Journalism Survive?: focus of the book
- Can the machine (AI) brain be more creative than the human brain?
- What the human journalist must do to win the war with the robot journalist;
- How the new automatic newsroom will look like, and how the new technologies including Immersive technologies (the Metaverse…) will affect journalistic story telling.
The term ‘artificial intelligence’ first coined:
AI is frequently defined as the science of making machines do things as if they were done by humans [McCarthy et al., 1955].
DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES – AI AND HUMAN BRAIN
Founding fathers of AI, John McCarty, Herbert Simon, and Marvin Minsky, since the 1950s and early 1960s, predicted that all the problems of AI would be resolved within 20 years.
70 years later, despite important recent developments in deep learning and neural networks, everyone realizes that the human brain is far more complex than was presumed [Knight, 2016].
AI philosopher John Searle claims that the artificial brain, which comprises electronic hardware, will never be able to fully emulate the biological activity of the human brain.
Searle: AI algorithms can instruct computers to perform simple electronic activities, but computer algorithms cannot develop emotions [Searle, 2013].
STATUS QUO
- Robot journalism is becoming more prevalent and sophisticated – machines capable of generating news articles and other content at increasing speeds and accuracy.
- Advancements in AI and natural language processing are driving this trend – software programs now are able to analyze data, identify trends, and create news stories on their own.
Robot journalists PERFORMANCE
- Ability to generate large amounts of data-driven stories quickly and efficiently.
- These stories can be particularly useful for covering routine topics such as financial reports or sports scores, weather forecasts; relieve human reporters to focus on more complex and nuanced issues.
Robot journalist LIMITATIONS
- Generating original or investigative stories that require human judgement and perspective.
- Human journalists remain critical to the industry, bringing a unique perspective and level of insight to their reporting.
- Ethical responsibilities cannot be fulfilled by a robot
Robot journalist: PERSPECTIVES
- Concerns about the future of human journalism will continue.
- Opportunities for news organizations to leverage technology and enhance their coverage.
- As technology continues to evolve, journalists must adapt and find new ways to stay relevant and valuable to their audiences.
- This may involve developing new skills such as data analysis or multimedia storytelling, as well as maintaining a strong ethical framework and commitment to accuracy and truth-telling.
ALEXANDR WANG CEO SCALE AI “Our mission is to accelerate the development of AI applications”
NATURE OF NEWS
CONTENT in new media
Profound transformation of content, largely enabled, if not driven, by technological change
- Ascendancy of high-speed news: * increasing trend of online scoops & * tremendous growth of online publishing and of original content being published online
- Changing nature of storytelling and presentation of news online: * The inverted pyramid news-writing style is being supplanted by immersive and interactive multimedia news reports that can give readers/viewers a feeling of presence at news events like never before.
Is new journalism better?
It is engaging and in some way perhaps comes closer to the truth by removing one level of filltering
- Disrupted traditional news inductry
- Speed & Breaking News
Impact on the structure of the news industry
Thousands of news sites maintained by classic news organizations (including newspapers, news magazines and broadcast/cable news providers) and online news providers → creation of a new global news marketplace.
Growing diversity of news and other media at national and international levels → growing concerns about local news.
Changing economics and technology of online news are reshaping the traditional separation of editorial and business functions in newsrooms → ethical concerns about the possible influence of advertising on editorial content.
Structure and organization within media companies: Impact on the structure of the newsroom
- Online communication transformed the centralization and hierarchical character of the newsroom.
- Newsrooms become flatter, especially in their online editions.
- Increased communication between newsroom personnel and audience dramatically influencing story selection and coverage.
The Newsroom Model
THREE TYPES OF NEWSROOMS
- Traditional
* Disseminate information primarily in the legacy formats of newspaper, television, print magazines, and radio.
* Though these organizations may have a website or some digital presence, their primary platform is a traditional format. - Hybrid
* Use a combination of traditional and digital formats.
* Many hybrid organizations have transitioned from being traditional news outlets - Digital-only
* Exclusively publish in an online format
ICFJ Report - 2019 on newsroon formats
Hybrid newsrooms are growing as traditional newsrooms shrink.
Surprisingly, digital-only newsroom growth is flat or down everywhere except in East/Southeast Asia, suggesting that fewer online start-ups are launching.
While most newsrooms continue to cut staff, nearly half of outlets with 25 or fewer employees have increased in size over the last two years.
Most newsrooms are small. More than half of newsrooms have ten or fewer full-time employees. Digital-only organizations are the smallest, with 75% employing up to ten full-time staff.
Freelancing has become prevalent as more journalists lose their jobs.
CHARACTERISTICS OF NEWSROOMS IN THE DIGITAL AGE
➢ Digital newsrooms enable journalists to take direct control over the process of producing
➢ Technology is affecting the centralization and hierarchical character
➢ More newsrooms become flatter in their structure
➢ Critics see technological change as a negative development that affects journalists’ ability to undertake his or her core function
Impact of Technology on Journalism…
Fundamentally reshaping of the relationships between and among news organizations, journalists and their many publics, including audiences, competitors, news sources, sponsors and those who seek to regulate or control the press.
One-way communication
Two-way communication
Relations among news organizations and their publics
Traditional relationship : “broadcast model of communication” :
* a one (or few) to many communication flow with little feedback between source and receiver (or journalist and audience).
* a relatively anonymous, heterogeneous audience.
* Intent: persuasion and information.
New relationship: a “two-way symmetric model of communication”: * with a much more balanced flow of communication.
* no one group dominates the process of persuasion. Rather, all parties influence each other, at least to some degree.
* development of civic or public journalism
Stages of the traditional news process
Gatekeeping theory: functions
The main functions of the gatekeeping theory are:
- to limit the information
- to expand the information
- to reinterpret the information
- setting agenda
Gate Keeping Theory Scheme
Gatewatching
*Position of Authority:
- Community of bloggers, citizen journalists and activists
New form of collaborative news produsage
- observing what news passes through the gates of news and other organisations
- hihlighting those news items which are of relevance to the community
- making info available rather than producing and disseminating
- adding commentary, analysis, and discussion to the news
- involving users as producers - producers
The gatewatcher news process
Main characteristics of the nature of networks & communication in the network society: Castells
- What is the primary characteristic of network society?
The emergence of microelectronic technologies. - According to Castells, what is the role of networks in a society?
* Networks are a way to create more egalitarian societies. - What is the main challenge posed by network society?
c. The fragmentation of society - What does Castells mean by the term “space of flows”?
c. The interconnected, global spaces of the network society. - According to Castells, what is the impact of network society on social
movements?
c. Network society strengthens social movements by providing new means of communication and organization. - What is the difference between a network and a hierarchy?
a. Networks are decentralized and flexible, while hierarchies are centralized and rigid.
One vs. 2 ways of communication
REASONS OF THE NEW COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
- Invention of microelectronics and the IT revolution;
- The crisis of industrialism in both capitalist and statist societies;
- The profound cultural challenge culminating in the rise of social movements in the late 1960’s.
Microelectronicsbased, network technologies
Information + Knowledge
DEFINITION NETWORK SOCIETY
- A society whose social structure is made up of networks powered by microelectronics-based information and communication technologies. (Castells, 2010)
- A new form of society brought about as a result of several major social, technological, economic, and cultural transformations caused by the spread of networked, digital ICT.
MANUEL CASTELLS: the rise of network society
- Social networks are not new; but in a network society they are driven by microelectronic communication technologies (for e.g., the internet and mobile phones).
- Network society refers to the social structures of the information age which is dominated by decentralized networks rather than bureaucratic and hierarchical institutions.
Traditional media companies’ changes
- Increased competition
(legacy media, alternative media, Blogger) - Erosion of revenue streams
- Content creation and distribution changed (multi
-platforms)
Digital business model necessary
Social media influencers
Global Convergence
The “Toffler Curve”
The “Toffler Curve”
Shorthand for the concept of the accelerating rate of change, and its distribution to humans and society
Audiences change
Old and new media have converged
The ‘Old’ Media consumer + The ‘New’ Media Producer = The Media Procumer
The audience is no longer consumer, but producer too.
Other concerns: privacy
Privacy: private data being distributed and exploitable * your name, your pictures, your personal information being uploaded, watched, used * your location being known and surveilled * cyber-bulling: teenagers by peers, dissidents by governments…
Reputation: Companies and brands fear losing control of the message, being judged without a trial, being lynched on the Internet.
“The journatic scandal”
Public sphere definition
Public sphere is a “communication system that mediates between the citizens at the micro-level and the governmental system at the macro-level.”
- citizens gain information on the governmental system and political decision-making
- citizens’ interests are communicated and transmitted to the governmental system
Public sphere scheme
Fake news
3 Types of Information Disorder
Disinformation: Information that is false and deliberately created to harm a person, social group, organization or country.
Misinformation: Information that is false, but not created with the intention of causing harm.
Mal-information: Information that is based on reality, used to inflict harm on a person, organization or country.
Disinformation, misinformation and malinformation scheme
Example of Mis- and Disinformation
This photo was posted in the context of the migrant “caravan” in the US, but is actually a photo of Syrian refugees in Lesbos, Greece, from 2015. The original image was shared on Twitter by the photographer.
Conflicting logics of the journalistic field: Ideal case
Ideally, professional and commercial logic would work in tandem:
Map of the main genres of video games
