Snurb's blog

Hamburg.
The next session I’m attending at ECREA 2010 starts with Arne Hintz, whose focus is on policy agendas for participatory media – which here means a wide range of media forms from radio to online.

Community radio, for example, has traditionally been quite strongly regulated, along with the overall broadcast sector; there is a dual non-commercial/commercial media system, and in some countries also still a strong pirate radio tradition. Gradually, a three-tier broadcast system (community, public service, commercial) has emerged in many countries, and some pirate stations have been given licences.

Hamburg.
The next speaker in this interesting ECREA 2010 session is Kostas Saltzis, whose focus is on the coverage of breaking news by UK Websites. Online journalistic practices here tend to focus on updating and maintaining online stories; this is a break from the newspaper approach that necessitated stories to be finished ahead of sending the daily paper to the presses.

24/7 news cycles mean that breaking news must be covered immediately, at any time, however, and this challenges the status of the news story as a finished product. Debate here may sometimes focus more on the speed rather than the quality of journalistic work; this is due also to increased competition. There are now no deadlines associated with continuous coverage, but certain newsroom routines remain unchanged.

Hamburg.
The next speaker at ECREA 2010 is Inta Brikše, whose interest is in Latvian and Russian news media’s coverage of each other’s countries. Russia is still seen as a major enemy of Latvia, for historic reasons, so it is interesting to examine how each country is framed by the news media of the other.

The study examined the Websites of three Russian and three Latvian newspapers, as well as of three Latvian newspapers which are published in the Russian language. This content was examined for issues, sources, source types, causes for coverage (events, opinions, …), and levels of neutrality in coverage.

Hamburg.
The next speaker at ECREA 2010 is Pere Masip, whose focus is on the multimedia content of Spanish online newspapers. There is a growing presence of video on such sites, indication new content as well as business models. Why and how is video used on news Websites, then? This study examined the Websites of three of the biggest Spanish newspapers, as well as of the most visited online-only news site in Spain.

Between 14 and 17% of stories on the three newspaper sites had videos; just over 10% of the online-only site. Such videos are mainly integrated with text news on these sites; only one site placed many of its videos in a separate section. Usually, these videos were professionally produced news videos; citizen-generated video content is rare. Such videos include a news organisation ident, but tend not to include bylines or other identifications of the journalists responsible.

Hamburg.
For the post-lunch session on this second day at ECREA 2010, I’m at a panel on online journalism. Steen Steensen is the first presenter, and his interest is in online sports journalism, and specifically the live coverage of football by sports Websites. What journalistic ideals does such coverage promote?

Live online sports coverage, especially when using streaming or chat tools like CoverItLive, is perhaps the most liquid form of journalism; it allows journalists to easily cover live events, and users to comment and provide feedback. Sports journalism especially in electronic media generally relies very heavily on immediacy, of course.

Hamburg.
This morning’s keynote at ECREA 2010 is by Peter Golding, who will discuss the processes of building European research networks. Much of the research in media and communication studies is inherently international; the media are largely dominated by a handful of major transnational corporations, for example. Europe is interesting as a testing ground for the ideas that stem from this – current developments take place especially in areas that exist beyond a mere focus on national public service broadcasting.

Only collaborative research can effectively explore to examine the future shape of the media industries – especially their economic structures. Similarly, many issues that we need to address exist beyond the confines of the nation state: the systematic disengagement from political processes, the retreat of public intellectuals, soundbite culture, the fragmentation of the news media, disappearing news audiences, and the rise of ‘unreason’ are all transnational phenomena, for example, and must be addressed by collaborative research networks. Such collaboration takes place through pan-European scholarly vehicles like the European Journal of Communication and ECREA itself, for example, as well as through European research programmes.

Hamburg.
The final speaker in this ECREA 2010 panel is Angela Phillips, who highlights the disappearance of local news; this is a significant challenge to democracy, as it makes it more difficult for citizens to participate in democratic processes in an informed fashion. She highlights hyperlocal blogs as a potential solution here, but these sites are in the main run by enthusiasts without any financial base, and this means that their quality and reach remain limited.

Finding hyperlocal news information is difficult: we don’t know what we need to know; there is no obvious equivalent to a front page of newspaper poster; there is no obvious equivalent to a news bulletin; and there are homogenising effects of online search. So, the hyperlocal sites which do exist could be seen as speaking only to a small elite of the already converted.

Hamburg.
The next speaker at ECREA 2010 is Tamara Witschge, who examines the debates around the future of news. New media technologies are coupled with an idea of progress, and are sometimes mythologised as the answer to dwindling audience figures for journalism; this needs to be critically examined. There is very little space for working journalists to challenge how technology is implemented, which is driven often by technological determinism.

Technological determinism is rife in journalists’ understanding of current changes, in fact; technology is seen as the only way out of the current crisis in journalism. First, there is the perception of an imminent threat; second, audiences are going online, and journalists perceive a need to chase them; embracing new technologies is seen as the only way to do so. So, technology has been coupled directly with progress, and this is seen as the only salvation for the industry.

Hamburg.
The next speaker at ECREA 2010 is Des Freedman, who shifts our focus to Net neutrality; he suggests that debates over Net neutrality have become overly legalistic and abstract, and discussions of democracy have largely disappeared from them. The overall debate is now about openness: an open Internet. The principles which underlie arguments for an open Internet are now about consumer entitlements rather than democracy.

Hamburg.
The next speaker at ECREA 2010 is Natalie Fenton, who highlights four key themes in research on media and democracy during the online age. There is a need for deeper contextualisation of the available research, she sees, which will also help realise the full potential of what is happening here.

The first dimension is the idea that social media are communication-led rather than information-driven. Social media are used for a variety of reasons, with the sense of being connected, being part of a community, as a key driver. What’s missing from a lot of that is that some basic questions aren’t yet asked – especially, who is communicating what to whom. There often remains an elite which is guiding and even dominating the discussion – and of course the majority of users are using the Net for non-political uses.

This communicative nirvana is a means of self-expression organised around class affiliations and categories of taste, and therefore also reinforces pre-existing hierarchies. Our activities here leave footprints which are captured and analysed by various corporations; the participative turn does not necessarily entail a democratisation of activity.