Blog

Milwaukee.


After the first keynote at AoIR 2009, I'm now in a panel on last.fm that begins with Nancy Baym. She asks what the term 'friend' means in a social networking site; this both in an interpersonal context and in the context of society as a whole, where some suggest that the term 'friend' is losing its meaning through its use on social networking sites. Last.fm was founded in London in 2005, and now has more than 35 million users; it is highly international, and based in the first place on the use of audio scrobbling application which share what its users are listening to.

Milwaukee.


The first keynote at AoIR 2009 is by Siva Vaidhyanathan, whose focus is on the Googlisation of everything (aiming low, then...). He begins by noting the largely uncritical veneration of Google and its impact on everyday life; Google is now almost impossible to get by without, which is quite an achievement for a company that is only 11 years old. One particularly notable recent project here is the Google library project which aims to digitise as many extant books as possible; where libraries around the world have for some time explored the possibility of a coordinated worldwide project, Google simply came in and got going with it. Especially troubling in this context is the cost of this to libraries.

Milwaukee.


The final speaker in this first session at AoIR 2009 is Carol Soon, who shifts our focus to Singaporean political bloggers. Political blogging and related forms challenge conventional top-down communication flows, of course, and in doing so also undermines established entities' authority in information dissemination. What follows is a diversification of political participation in the networked public sphere - and in the Singaporean context, then, who are the key players here?

The networked public sphere can be seen as an autopoietic system,in which flows of communication and relationships are self-organising, move from the bottom up, freely within clusters and in a self-determined fashion. This challenges systems which traditionally hold more powerful positions - and hyperlink analysis can be utilised to examine the flows of information in this changing environment. Such flows may involve conventional political parties, but also civil society groups (which in Singapore particularly challenges the established system).

Milwaukee.


The next speaker at AoIR 2009 is Uta Russmann, whose focus is on Web campaigning in Austria during the 2008 national elections, which for the first time saw a substantial use of online media for campaiging. There had been a use of Web-based information in previous elections, of course, but so far this remained quite simple and unsophisticated - mainly just various forms of shovelware.

Uta's study examined the use of the Web during the 2008 campaign, focusing on information provision, interaction with voters, and mobilisation of voters for campaigning, as well as broader connection and networking functions between parties and the media. This also takes into account the lessons from the 2007/8 US campaigns, which pointed to the Net becoming a key source of political information and participation especially for younger voters, as well as similar observations in recent campaigns in Germany, Italy, and France.

Milwaukee.


I've made it to the Association of Internet Researchers conference in windy Milwaukee, and promptly managed to seriously upset my stomach - so let's see how we go today. The first speaker in my first session at AoIR 2009 is Aaron S. Veenstra, whose focus is on political blogging during the 2008 US elections. He notes the emergence of what he calls 'new' new media - YouTube, Facebook, Twitter - and these have affected the way we think about political blogging, too.

Overall, too, blogging itself is increasingly difficult to define as technical definitions are dynamic and blogging genres are inconsistent at the top end and incredibly varied at the bottom end. The top tier of blogs may now be separating from the field, and liberal and conservative blogs (in the US) are growing apart; additionally, it is also important to distinguish between community and individual functions.

Cardiff.


The final presentation at the Future of Journalism 2009 conference, then, is by Ivar John Erdal, whose interest is in the relationship between technological changes and journalistic practices, examined through a study of journalists; experiences with digital production systems. Media organisations now rely increasingly on content management systems, which embed some specific technological and socio-cultural constraints and opportunities; in line with Giddens's structuration theory, these institutional structures (determined by intangible rules and tangible resources) affect journalistic practice.

Cardiff.


The next speakers at Future of Journalism 2009 are Maria Grafström and Karolina Windell, whose interest is in business news and the portrayal of corporate images as influenced by the relationship between media and business, with bloggers throw in as another complication. This is connected also with research into the idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR), which has become better-known in recent years especially as a result of being promoted by the media.

The way the media have portrayed specific corporations is changing as a result; corporations are framed in different ways depending on whether a CSR perspective is included or not. To understand such different portrayal it is necessary to understand the production of business news, too, and to investigate the sources for different articles. Blogs now play a growing role in this context, and the study presented here especially examined articles about blogs in the business press (print, online, radio) as well as interviewing and surveying business journalists in Sweden.

Cardiff.


The final session at Future of Journalism 2009 starts with Stuart Allan, whose focus is on science journalism. One important question here is one of framing - a discursive strategy used to define the nature of a public event; a contested process between journalists and their sources and within news organisations. Frames determine how claims made by sources are selected (or not) as newsworthy, and influence public perception - sources are very aware of this and will try ensure that their comments are seen in the appropriate light.

Cardiff.


The final speaker in this session at Future of Journalism 2009 is Tony Harcup, who shifts our focus back to the 1984/5 UK miners' strike and suggests that the reporting of this strike by alternative media may well provide a much better example of citizen journalism than what is described that way today.

The strike was about the destruction of an industry and of the communities which depended on it, and was reported in detail by alternative newspapers like the monthly Sheffield City Issues. Coverage here was less frontline reporting from the scenes of conflict than reports on solidarity efforts in the city (fundraising events, police watchdog efforts, etc.), and the newspaper sided quite clearly with the miners; it provided an alternative public sphere and acted as a community noticeboard for the strikers and their supporters.