Gatewatching and Citizen Journalism

I've just had word that my paper for the Association of Internet Researchers Conference this year has been accepted - so I guess I'll be going to Chicago in October... The paper is titled "Wikinews: The Next Generation of Alternative Online News?" and deals with a form of open news which arrived too late to be fully considered in my book, so it's a kind of addendum to the book itself. As this is the peak association in my line of research, I'm also hoping to have a bit of a launch for the book at the conference.

I spent most of yesterday working on the final draft of my book Gatewatching: Collaborative Online News Production. The proofread manuscript arrived back from Peter Lang in New York earlier this week, and so I went through the thing one last time to apply the requested changes - nothing too serious (a few last remnants of Australian spelling and a few minor formatting issues), but a fairly tedious and time-consuming process nonetheless. Had to change printers at the last minute as well as the one in my office developed an annoying smudging problem, but finally now the whole lot is printed (and Peter Lang will scan these pages for printing the book) and the completed package has started the return journey around the world. According to Fedex it should arrive there in ten hours, and if all goes well this would mean the book can go to the printers this coming week!

The folks at Peter Lang sent me the proof for the cover of my book Gatewatching: Collaborative Online News Production today. This is based on a design by QUT student Gordon Grace, who also led the team that redesigned M/C - Media and Culture last year. So, look out for it in the bookshop - it should go to print in a month or so...

Hmm. I've been invited to contribute a piece to the April feature of Online Opinion, which will look at online and alternative media in Australia. So, I guess I'll have to make up my mind about what I think about this topic... Here's a first take:

News You Can Produse

Much of the debate around online, and even alternative online media in Australia continues to miss the point. So much of online publishers' thinking about their work is still couched in an outmoded language which upholds increasingly hollow and counterproductive approaches to publishing. Indeed the terms 'publishing' and 'media' may be part of the problem themselves. 'Media', after all, implies the existence of a mediator, an agency presumably in the middle between producers and consumers which 'publishes', that is, makes public what was previously unavailable.

I'm almost ready to deliver the final version of my book now - just some more work to be done on the final chapter by the end of the week, and then things should be pretty much ready. I've also received another back cover endorsement from my colleague Geert Lovink today:

"Ever wondered why people love to comment on the news? Axel Bruns describes in detail how, in the Internet age, this 'gatewatching' passion is changing the media landscape. Are news barons paying notice? Of course not. Will bloggers and open news contributors revolutionize our understanding of news production? You bet they will."

Doing more work revising my book manuscript today. I've incorporated some recent findings by the Pew Internet & American Life Project which Steve Jones pointed out to me - in fact, they just released a new update on blogging (in the U.S.) a few days ago...

The State of Blogging shows a 57% increase in blog readership over the course of 2004; at the same time, they also found that

for all the excitement about blogs and the media coverage of them, blogs have not yet become recognized by a majority of internet users. Only 38% of all internet users know what a blog is. The rest are not sure what the term ‘blog’ means.

(I'd suggest that while many users in that rest may have visited blogs, they have regarded them as online diaries, community fora, or news Websites rather than as blogs.)

Hmm, reading about blogs always makes me want to write another entry myself. Unfortunately I don't get around to it nearly as often as I should.

I've had some very good news in the meantime: my series editor for Peter Lang, Steve Jones, likes the manuscript for the Gatewatching book that I delivered at the end of November. A few minor corrections and additions to be made, but things should go smoothly from here. I'll try and I've updated the relevant pages on this site, too. I've also received a nice endorsement for the back cover from John Hartley:

It's journalism, Jim, but not as we know it. "Gatewatching," "multiperspectival editing," the "produser." Strange new terms -- but as Axel Bruns shows in this impressive account of online news media, the underlying issues remain very much as Herbert Gans described them a generation ago. In a democracy everyone has a right to practice journalism. Users are beginning to shape the oddly named collaborative instruments on the internet into a new chorus, giving a new voice to democracy. Axel Bruns shows us why and how we all need to learn the tune.
John Hartley, Queensland University of Technology.