5th JOURNALISM FORUM AT UCLAN

Man is a social animal and the greatest revolution of the 21st century will be that people will want to participate more and more in debate.
Technology is not however driving this revolution,it is simply allowing it to happen because it is fundemental human nature to debate and join in.

That was the messge coming out of the 5th journalism leaders forum held at the University of Central Lancs last night which was discussing "How Traditional Media Brands will survive in the Wired World"

Adam Moore,of engagement marketing firmSMLXL related how the world of communications had changed.When he was growing up there were a few Newspaper propriators telling him what he should think and read.His daughter inhabits an entirely different environment where participation is the norm.

The challenge to the media is how to give value to its customers but more importantly to its advertisers.

There is evidence according to Heather Hopkins,vice President on online research company Hitwise that internet users are moving away from searching adult sites and towards news and social networking sites.

One of the questions asked was how these trends will effect journlists.Simon Reynold's of the Lancashire Evening Post thought that journalists still needed the basic skills and his recriutment criteria had not really changed.
It was agreed though that the profession had to listen more to opinion,be prepared to engage in dialogue and be more transparent in where their information came from.

Heather Hopkins said that it was quite frightening that people went predominantly to Wikipedia when wantin news of last year's Israel-Lebanon war,Evidence that people are still relying on the basic search engines as a portal for news.