New Media and an Emerging Paradigm for 21st Century ...



New Media and an Emerging Paradigm for 21st Century Journalism EducationCharles C. SelfSeptember 29, 2011Universidad Austral PresentationThank you all for being here. It is a great pleasure and honor for me to be able to meet with you and to learn about the changes in media in Buenos Aires at this most fascinating time in the development of journalism. We live in one of the most exciting times in the history of journalism. The Spanish theorist Manuel Castells has suggested that a fundamentally new form of media has emerged. He calls it an International Informational Network. It is based on combinations of digital online and wireless media with traditional mass media. Together they create what Mathew Fuller calls urban media ecologies that feed off each other in an interplay of symbols that create the meaning of urban life. Castells and others write that this new media system has implications for how we understand the role of media in the civic life of communities. In fact, they argue that the nature of community itself is changing as our interactions become more diverse and international. Today, I want to talk with you about how new media are changing journalism and its role in communities. I want to explore the opportunities and the challenges these changes offer and discuss what I see is an emerging new model of journalism. The model is new, but I believe it is similar to the earliest model of journalism—the original idea of The Enlightenment. The new model is a “new Enlightenment” model that promotes direct dialog among people. Many have argued that this new model is different from the “mass” media model of journalism. That mass media model required journalists to be gatekeepers or “arbiters” of truth, deciding who would be heard. Journalists had to do this because space in the newspaper is expensive and limited. Production costs created scarce and expensive media.The new, digital media are cheap. Their channels are plentiful. They can empower individuals to discuss, debate, and act in ways the mass media cannot. In this way, these new media support the kind of community action envisioned by the Enlightenment. The dilemma about 21st century media is, of course, technology. But it is even more about community and about how journalism helps individuals and groups engage in conversations about the future of their communities.The Internet has emerged as a major force in journalism and much has changed. Fortunately, Argentina still has a vibrant mass media industry. It hasn’t yet seen the dramatic declines in circulations that many media in the United States have seen. I hope the media in Buenos Aires will avoid many of the mistakes we have made in North America. We were too slow to realize the opportunities the new media offer for journalism. So, today, I would like to explore with you the Emerging Model of Mediated Communication for the 21st Century.To examine this phenomenon, I want to explain four broad points: first, that important trends today demand a new media model; second, that the core principles of the new model already are known and the model is a “scalable, interactive, digital network” form of journalism, third that this new model offers wonderful new opportunities for journalism and some real challenges for society, and, finally, that this new model means that we need to think about learning more skills in journalism schools.So, let’s begin by looking at some trends shaping media today. I’d like to briefly mention five major social trends that demand a new approach in journalism?The first trend the demands the new model is Change. I’m sure you all recognize this. It’s all around us. Change no longer happens and is finished—change is constant and ongoing. I am talking about both technological change in journalism and social and economic change that the technologies support. Media certainly are changing. According to the World Association of Newspapers’ 2010 annual report, daily newspaper circulations across the globe have declined. They have declined 5 percent in South America. They have declined 11 percent in the United States. In fact, according to Editor and Publisher yearbook 2010, all types of newspaper circulations declined in the United States last year. What’s more, local television, network television, radio, magazines, and even cable television audiences declined in the United States, too. But the news is not all bad. Online audiences are actually growing. They were up 17 percent last year. The Pew Center reported that for the first time last year, more people in the United States turned to the Web for news than to any other media form. Internet use is rising across the Hemisphere, too. This is a worldwide phenomenon; and it will only grow stronger in the coming years.These changes have changed audiences, too. Journalists no longer just arbitrate (or gate-keep) what should be published. Communities today demand a voice. Journalists today seek ways to enable and empower public dialogue.The Second Big Trend that demands a new model is Internationalization: Media today are simultaneously local and global. I am sure most of you have seen Tom Friedman’s book The World is Flat. He talks about how digital media have flattened the world. Today all countries can be players in the world economic game. Products and ideas are created everywhere in the world. Local communities are connected internationally. Local companies are international. This is possible because global media networks are open to everyone. These networks change how we think of time and place. They give us all a sense that no place is distant and that time is always now on the Internet.Spanish theorist Manuel Castells shows that this instant connection of people, businesses and governments has changed the way power flows. Because we can quickly reach audiences dispersed across the globe, power lies in media symbols and the meanings people everywhere use to make decisions.Third, all over the globe, people are moving to cities—they are urban. Doug Saunders describes it in Arrival City and Mike Davis describes it in Planet of Slums, although they describe it from opposite points of view. Worldwide migration has created Megacities all over the world. In the year 1800, only 3 percent of the world’s population lived in cities. Today, more than half the world’s population does. Today, 468 cities have populations of more than 1 million and 21 megacities have populations of more that 10 million. This urban environment is changing the media and reshaping the economic, political and social life. It offers both opportunities and challenges. Matthew Fuller vividly describes the intense interactions of media in cities “media ecologies.” These ecologies of media generate new forms of meaning in city life.The Fourth, Trend is Networks: The “look” of these new media industries is the look of “networks.” Today, that look is popularly called “the social network.” But it is much more sweeping and more profound than Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Manuel Castells calls it a network of networks. The new media networks connect businesses, politicians, NGOs, musicians, movie fans and scores of other groups into networks. Brian McNair in his book Cultural Chaos argues that this opens new ways for economic and political dialog. Online, “hyperlocal” Web sites like Philadelphia Neighborhoods and RVA in the United States are giving voice to individual neighborhoods and local groups. The hyperlocal movement in Europe, “lowcast resistance media”, “guerrilla media”, and “communities of practice” are all local networks made possible by cheap digital media.The Fifth Trend changing media is Liquidity. Social networks that use online media are not stable. They are constantly changing and evolving. Civil society competes with these new, “liquid” network structures that live and evolve in the virtual world and in urban media ecologies.Zygmunt Bauman calls this “liquid modernity.” He describes the unstable, constantly changing social relationships made possible by plentiful media connections. These are intense symbolic social structures. They have weakened many of the traditional social and civic structures. Individuals are forced to constantly re-negotiate social relationships to find the support they need.These are the important trends changing media today. They have produced a “liquid network” concept and structure for media industries. This structure is more diverse and unstable than traditional mass media systems. It reflects constantly changing interactions in internationalized urban environments and within the online virtual world itself.So, my first point is that the emerging concept and structure of the 21st century media system is already here (whether we like or not). The core trends have demanded it.My second point is that we know the core principles to implement the new model. Today, we are trying to figure out how to pay for it. We are trying paywalls, micropayments, and what Chris Anderson calls “Free” approaches. Mass media companies like The New York Times, the Washington Post, and even in my own state The Oklahoman are searching for the right formula. And media schools all over the United States at places like the University of Southern California, Michigan State University, the University of Missouri, and Columbia University have created new ways to teach journalists this new model. Industries in England and across Europe also are trying to better prepare their students and develop better business models. But it seems to me that universities in Latin America, like Universidad Austral, located in an urban setting in the middle of the emerging media ecologies, could to lead media industries in developing new community media networks. They can test the Enlightenment ideal of empowerment and dialogue. They can develop the new business models required.Latin American mass media are still doing well. They are still growing. They are still profitable. They are still an essential part of their communities. Internet and wireless industries are also growing. They are transforming urban life in Buenos Aires and across Latin America. We know from our experiences in the United States that eventually the online media forms will begin to undermine the stability of more traditional media. In Europe and the United States, we are working hard to migrate many of the services of our traditional media to Internet, wireless and tablet services. We know what needs to be done, but we have waited too long. It is proving to be a real challenge for us.You already have the core knowledge to use all these media tools—mass media and new digital media--to better serve your communities. The real challenge is to link the strengths of traditional journalism to the new model of digital journalism. So what is this new model? I think that it is becoming clear that the new model is a scalable, interactive digital media model that offers hyperlocal engagement at one end of the scale and city or nationwide reach at the other end of the scale.I am confident that you have your own ideas about how such a new network media model might look. You might even suggest that it already exists here in Argentina. But the original Enlightenment idea of media is that they provided places where individuals could talk with each other about their needs.The Internet and other new media forms have begun to take over that role today. The true significance of the new mediated forms of communication is not only in their ability to provide social communication (as important and entertaining as that may be). More important, it is in the way these digital media are reconstructing information, policy, opinion, politics, professions, civic life, and generally the communication about the business of society.The International Informational Network is a network of networks--a community of communities. It is NOT a mass audience. A growing body of what is called Social Network Analysis research demonstrates that the digital network is made up of many, highly dense, “ad hoc” networks which link tightly knit communities. They are tied to central “nodes” and “bridged” to other networks by connecting nodes. This is the emerging structure of the 21st century media and it looks a whole lot like the original “Gemeinshaft” communities described long ago by Ferdinand Tonnies, thought to have been displaced by the “mass (Gasellshaft) communities of the 20th century.” The transformed media systems are networks of virtual communities of interest and “communities of practice.” They are returning us to the early role that media that served the specialized needs of these local communities. Those communities never went away and it is increasingly clear that they dominate the urban and globalized landscape of 21st century society.So, my second point is that we know the principles to establish a new model of media practice: we must find a way to return to a concept of media that will empower information and dialog within many highly dense and interconnected communities and link them to the larger community of networked communities that make up today’s globalized urban landscape. Those systems create a scale of networks serving different sized communities and tie them into a unified system.My Third Point is that This New Model offers New Opportunities for JournalistsThe First Opportunity is a media world of Plenty rather than Scarcity. This system offers lots of media channels open to everyone. Online media don’t cost much compared to a press or a broadcast studio. Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson has pointed out that mass media systems were expensive to build, expensive to run and expensive to staff. So not many were available, especially to people with little money. The costs had to be recovered from advertisers, readers and even journalists. Online media are cheap. Once the broadband cabling is done, the costs for access for individuals are low. Almost anyone can get access. The costs to produce messages are low. Almost anyone can put content on the Web. Anderson argues that information costs are rapidly dropping to Zero—Free. He says information on the Internet should be free. You make your money on products, not on information.The Second Opportunity is Targeting. Because information and access are free, it is easy and cheap to target just those you want to reach. The scalable media network system can help journalists reach narrow target audiences. If they don’t create these targets themselves, others will bypass them. Think Craig’s List here.The Third Opportunity is Assembling Dispersed Knowledge: Cass Sunstein, in his book Infotopia, has pointed out that digital media systems can assemble the best thinking about almost any issue and do it cheaply. He says they are good at “assembling knowledge from dispersed sources.” Using digital media, sites such as Wikipedia ask individuals everywhere to contribute knowledge about virtually every subject and ask others to check it for accuracy.U.S. mass media now regularly call for individual “citizen journalists” to contribute information about their communities. Advocacy organizations and corporations ask members and customers their opinions. And individuals read online reviews written by other individuals to decide what to buy and where to eat.The Fourth Opportunity is Empowering Dialogue: The changes in media systems mean new opportunities for governance. Clay Shirky, Cass Sunstein, Henry Jenkins, and many others suggest that digital media make it easy for people to organize online to act as a group. Of course, this can be positive, as in political campaigns. It can be trivial as in Flash Mobs. It can be dangerous, as in the recent London riots.Journalists should be at the center of empowering people and assembling them to discuss topics important in their communities.The new Model of Journalism is Scalability. Interactive Digital Technology gives journalism the power to address networks of all sizes. Mass audiences have not gone away. Mass media still are healthy and still the most influential forms of media. Major sporting, political and cultural events still assemble mass audiences. Advertisers, advocates and politicians with enough money still use mass media to reach large populations.But today, mass media can connect with hyperlocal audiences, too. Online and wireless technologies can create Scalable Media Networks. At one end of the scale, these networks support local empowerment. At the other end the scale, mass media systems can generate large audiences around common social interests.News aggregators were the first to try to bridge the scale. Today, experiments are going on all over the Hemisphere to create a viable business model that offers scalability. The AOL experiment, Patch, is one example. Citywide Websites drawing on content from hyperlocal sites is another. Experiments at New York City University’s hyperlocal news site that feeds neighborhood news to the New York Times is another.These scalable systems offer advertisers, entrepreneurs, and politicians the best of both worlds. They appeal directly to target audiences but also reach mass audiences. They enable direct conversation, but share the best more widely. This model still is emerging. The challenges are great. The business model still is evolving through micropayments, paywalls, and enhanced services. The networks of communities demand the full scale of media. It is up to the young journalists of today to find complete the model.But These Systems Create Challenges, Too.I’ll just mention three: The First Challenge is Fragmentation of Society. Many writers suggest that the new network systems might be fragmenting society. They fear that the broad consensus required for public policy and social action might be difficult. Some even argue that the fragmented political dialogue in the United States today can be attributed in part to the fragmentation of media sources in digital media systems. Cass Sunstein has made this argument. He suggested that the specialized Internet media have created an “echo chamber.” Users seek only information they agree with. They avoid opinions that challenge their beliefs.Policy makers and businesses are forced to give up control and engage in dialogue. They become part of what Jürgen Habermas calls the “public sphere.” But the conversations are sometimes rather narrow.Castells says the new networks require institutions and governments to constantly “tend” to the “flow” of conversations redefining meaning on the network all the time. Most major politicians and companies in the United States now maintain teams to constantly monitor online networks and engage in the conversations that go on online all the time.The Second Challenge is Security. Castells points out that all the weaknesses of humanity are at work, unfiltered, on the Web. The greed, criminality, and disruptors are all there. We have all been offered millions of dollars from Websites in Russia, Eastern Europe, or Africa. And, of course, you are all aware of the actions of Wikileaks, Anonymous, and increasingly, state-sponsored online spying and disruptions. These represent the most fundamental challenges for national security and even for personal security. But less obviously these online media offer challenges to national boarders. They even create new ways to challenge national policy and national sovereignty. In some countries, displaced populations have organized outside the boarders of countries to challenge national policy and try to force changes in policy within those countries.The Third Challenge is Media Standards. Authors Bill Kovach and Tom Rosentiel have written extensively about the impact of online media on journalist standards. Those of us in journalism education have spent our lives training journalists and advocating rigorous standards for journalism. Today, we face the reality that much of what people read, view, and absorb as fact comes from untrained communicators empowered by the new media systems that have spread around the world. For all the advantages and empowerment those media offer, many of us worry about how we maintain standards of truth in a system open to all. This is, ultimately, a challenge for all of us who care about rational thought in the discussions and debates that occupy the citizens of the countries of the Western Hemisphere.Which brings me to my final, Fourth point: I think it is becoming clear that our model of media education should be shifted to prepare students for the emerging new scalable, interactive digital media network model of mediated communication.The trends, principles and opportunities all suggest that students interested in media careers must learn constantly changing skills to work in such media. Students need to be able to create and operate the media networks that empower and link virtual and specialized communities of interest and communities of practice today. They must be trained to become the central nodes and bridging nodes in those network communities. The skills required are not very different from the core writing and editing skills we have always taught—the core principles of communicating. But the conceptual base for using those skills will need to be expanded. Journalists today must learn to facilitate communication within communities and offer quality information that will enrich such conversations. They will less seldom be called upon to be gatekeepers, deciding who should be heard.Furthermore, we will need partners to create new models for teaching and for community engagement. Here at Universidad Austreal, you already are well ahead of many in beginning his work. You already emphasize interdisciplinary efforts. But this effort will require a significant commitment to thinking about the structure and function of media as scalable network structures rather than as mass distribution industries.This engagement must be a partnership among the faculty and students of with partners from across campus and with investors, civic leaders, and media entrepreneurs from throughout the economic, political and urban centers of our major cities and throughout the international media system. And, of course, we will have to show how such a media system can survive economically.The crucial leap still is a vision of scalable, networked media connected with communities of practice and interest. It will require building a network of external partners in industry. It will provide new opportunities for faculty and students to be part of the initiative.More than anything, it will require the best thinking, and willing, of all of us to make it a success.I find the prospect exciting. I think it will be a natural extension of what you already are doing here. I think it flows naturally from media history and 21st century trends in society, economics, politics and media. I hope you find it exciting, too.Thank you for your interest. ................
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