Journalism

Singapore.
The next speaker at ICA 2010 is C.W. Anderson, whose interest is in debates over the US shield law for journalists. Can we see a process of professional boundary maintenance in this (protecting definitions of who is and isn't a journalist)? The shield law debate emerged from questions about what legal protections were available to journalists who were suppoenaed to release information gathered from confidential sources; the law would protect journalists and their sources and grant them immunity from particular forms of prosecution.

Singapore.
The next speaker at ICA 2010 is Salim Al-Habash (?), presenting on behalf of the paper's actual authors. He begins by noting the large number of blogs now in existence; some 44% of online news users have their pages customised to include news sites; 75% of Americans get news via email and social network sites; 51% share their news in this way, and 52% get news from their followers on social network sites. We can also categorise types of blogging: founder/manager (single-authored blogs); hybrid sites (volunteers, part-timers, outside participation); and open sites (overseen by administrators).

Singapore.
OK, after my break from proceedings I'm back for my final ICA 2010 session today, which starts with Donna Stephens. She begins with the view that one of the functions of the media is the civic exchange of ideas - orchestrated for example through the letters to the editor pages. Today, blogs have taken over some of that role, and enabled a more instant form of feedback and conversation - however, they are also different: more anonymous, better controllable by the poster, and more immediate.

Also, few people write letters to the editor, while opinion exchange through blogs may happen at a greater volume or continue for longer than in the mainstream media. Blogs no longer follow the media agenda, too, but occasionally set it as well. But what is the difference in content between the two? This study compared letters to the editor to an Arkansas newspaper with comments on the general blog of another statewide newspaper, in each case relating to an (at first secret) $300,000 bonus payment for the University of Central Arkansas president Lu Hardin, and the events following these revelations through to Hardin's resignation.

Singapore.
The second paper in this ICA 2010 session is by Wolfgang Donsbach, who begins by outlining three broad traditions of journalism: the subjective tradition (pursuing individual goals), the public service tradition, and the commercial tradition. Each can be characterised along a number of criteria (goals, dominant relationships, prototypes, dominant values, dominant content, and the journalist's role).

In his view, the public service tradition - selecting relevant and verified information - is the crucial one for journalism, but it is now under threat: from within the media, through the tabloidisation of content (increasing levels of pop politics, personalisation, scandalisation and sensationalism, negativity) and the attendant changes in format (growing emotionalisation, fragmentation and sound bites, a race to maximise audience reach, and bottom line pressures on journalists). Journalists increasingly complain about bottom line pressures and about how frequently their content is changed by others after filing, for example.

Singapore.
I'm afraid in the battle between lunch and the second plenary, lunch won out, so I'm skipping Ien Ang's keynote at ICA 2010, and jumping right to the first of the post-lunch sessions. I may miss some of those as well as I've got a few meetings in the afternoon, but we'll see how we go. We start the afternoon with a paper by Wiebke Loosen from the fabulous Hans-Bredow-Institut in Hamburg, whose interest is in the relationship between journalism and its audiences. One of the key issues here is the change in the sender/receiver relationship - always a complicated and paradoxical relationship (journalism provides a service and needs an audience, but that audience plays a subordinate role - journalists are often oriented more towards their colleagues than towards audiences).

Singapore.
The next speaker at ICA 2010 is Matthew Weber, who shifts our focus to online news and begins by noting the gradual decline of the traditional print news community and the rise of online news usage. Newspaper organisations - the news industry - form a community made up of individual populations of professionals, which compete with one another for users; within this, in turn, there are individual news organisations pursuing specific corporate strategies.

What effect does such strategy have over time? Strategic change can increase the likelihood of survival during periods of disruption; interorganisational linkages can provide economic and reputational benefits, and increase legitimacy; hyperlinks between organisations can be instrumental in this. News organisations make strategic choices on how to link and whom to link to; at times of change, this is a question especially of how to deal with new entrants.

Hong Kong.
My paper is the second in this session at The Internet Turning 40, and I'm posting the Powerpoint below - it presents a rather different story from José's. Unfortunately, the recording didn't work - you'll have to read the paper...

Technorati : Internet Turning 40, Pro-Am, business, collaboration, community, produsage
Del.icio.us : Internet Turning 40, Pro-Am, business, collaboration, community, produsage

Hong Kong.
The final speaker in this session at The Internet Turning 40 is Alice Lee, who continues the focus on online news. She says that online news sites in a Web 2.0 operate like a digital marketplace where people get together and exchange news, and explores how Web 2.0 has affected these sites. The format of online media is particularly important, in other words - the breaking of previously existing boundaries which has occurred with Web 2.0 has upset the previous equilibrium and led to significant changes.

Hong Kong.
The next speaker at The Internet Turning 40 is Stuart Allan, who focusses our attention on the history of journalism on the Internet. He highlights the continuing questions of what counts as news, and who can be described as a journalist, in this changing environment, and notes that we have gradually shifted from journalism on the Internet to journalism of the Internet.

But to understand this shift better, it is useful to step back to consider the historical trajectory of journalism both online and in other media - by way of illustration, Stuart notes how over time, TV news bulletins have settled into a format that is now near-universal around the world, and which seems natural to us from life-long exposure, but is far from the only possible approach. Early TV newscasts were strongly influenced by newspaper journalism, of course, and replicated its conventions to some extent; another influence was radio journalism, which was better placed to do current, close to real-time reporting; yet another was newsreel journalism which had the expertise for presenting news stories in visual formats. Today, these have coalesced into a globally near-uniform format, with very few exceptions.

Hong Kong.
The second day of The Internet Turning 40 at Chinese University Hong Kong is upon us, and we're starting with a paper by William Dutton. He begins by noting a current story of mobile phones and online communication being used to mobilise workers in China in protest against working conditions - and he says that this illustrates the potential of new media as a fifth estate. The original three estates (clergy, nobility, commoners) were a feudal concept, of course, with journalists added later as a fourth estate, tasked with keeping the other three honest.