What is new media?

Many people hate the term new media.What exactly is new media,what's its business model and when did old become old?

Greg Marx agrees as he reports that

Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei has been elected to the Pulitzer Prize Board went out of its way to cast the move as part of the Pulitzers’ growing (and welcome) acceptance of “new media.”

Well as he says it's new,it's media and it has been a success and it was on the Web from the paper’s inception, and it has always cultivated high-metabolism reporting that matched the Web’s bottomless appetite for content.

But the way that Politico produces much of its content—by paying reporters who scurry around interviewing people—is decidedly old-fashioned

I suppose new media means a web presence,it means using social media tools to enhance content,but which media doesn't in this age?

Check out the Berlin Project

Pushing the boundaries of new media and broadcast journalism.

That's the claim of the Berlin Project

By covering a modern day Germany 20 years after the fall of the Berlin wall, this five–member team – whose work has been published and broadcast on various high profile media outlets including the BBC, CNN, Sky News, Reuters, CBC and CanWest Media Works – will use multiple platforms to represent a new generation of interactive journalism.

The project is backed by Reuters and is a follow up to G20 London Live.

Unlocking China

Polis' Charlie Beckett is currently out in Shanghai and writes an interesting post on whether the new media business is changing the politics of China?

The media industry here appears to be booming but scratch under the surface and you realise that even the political authorities fear that there are too many obstacles to innovation. This is both a source of concern and hope

.he writes and continues

the journalism school students and staff talk about how they are being paid for by the state to create journalists who will go out to serve the state. They describe it as accepting 10% censorship in return for doing the rest of their jobs.

Can this work with new media? Well, the answer I am getting is that it doesn’t and that the state itself recognises that.

New media,social media and politics

News of a conference taking place next week from Twentieth century network

The world of the media is changing as fast as everything else. A politician makes a speech ignored by the conventional media and it gets 1 million hits on utube. The world of Blogs forces a resignation of a chief government adviser before the daily newspapers know what is going on! The new social media is challenging the conventional news elites as never before. Politicians and their established lobbies are running scared. The new social media has blown a hole through the existing elites. What does this mean for the future?

Speakers include the Tory MEP Daniel Hannan whose berating of Gordon Brown at the European Parliament made him a star earlier in the year and proves the point of the conference

Tipping point has been reached for old media

According to Arianne Huffington we are close to the tipping point where new media takes over from the old.

The Huffington Post founder interviewed by Tribune media services said that

We are certainly at a turning point leading to the tipping point -- an exciting prospect in my view.

adding that

Today we live in the linked economy, not a walled-off content economy. The challenge is to find different ways to monetize links among media through advertising or micropayment or whatever, not subscription for exclusive content. In this environment, good journalism will survive, and even flourish, though most newspapers -- except for a handful of the very best papers and magazines in every national market -- probably will not.

But these are optimistic times

He who shouts loudest?

Part of the beauty about new media is that everybody has a voice and can act as fact-checkers, right? So somebody posts that Steve Jobs had a heart attack, and within a couple hours that is debunked by the collective power of the online realm.

writes John Zhu.

But is that really the case in the world of new media?

He asks

In this supposedly more democratic, more open, more equal, more free-flowing online marketplace of ideas, do the loudest voices — the most visible personalities, the ones with the most followers — still drown out the smaller voices, even though the little guys can now talk back to the big names?

It is a good point especially when one considers the sheer amount of information available online.It is impossible to look at all sources of information so what do you look at?

The first new media President calls the first blogger

Described as a bookend moment by the New York Times,President Obama's first White House news conference saw the calling of Sam Stein, a reporter for The Huffington Post.

It marks an important breakthrough for the political blogging fraternity in the States as acceptance at the highest level for a non old media journalist.

It is difficult to see the same thing happening here.Imagine Gordon Brown calling the next question from Iain Dale as an example of how far things have gone across the water.

Obama of course can be described as the first new media president.Whilst his twitter account probably wasn't the difference in the margin over John McCain,it certainly helped to create awareness of his campaign.

Interestly continues the paper

The White House decided in advance which reporters would be selected. And on Monday night, correspondents for The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, Time and Newsweek were not on the list.

Maybe the Obama media operation is missing something

Journalists play an important role as filters of information-fact?

An interesting point from Emma Heald writing over at the Editor's Weblog.

Emma is discussing the Obama regime's rush to embrace new technology to communicate with the masses and makes a salient point.

This by-passing of the traditional media works just fine for an event such as the inauguration, when the inauguration team's Twitter feed and blog provided fans with updates throughout the day. But when it comes to politics and the day-to-day workings of government, different issues arise with regards to 'information' direct from the source. It is essential to remember the vital role that traditional media has played for the past few hundred years as a intermediary between those in power and the masses: to provide an independent informed voice that can filter out the propaganda amongst the real news.

Digital and the consequences for news economics

Thanks to Adrian Monck who give a concise preview of A.Currah's Reuters Oxford Institute publication on the likely impact of the digital revolution on the economics of news.

Here are some of the findings and suggestions


1.Targeted tax breaks to provide an incentive to invest in the craft of journalism, including reporting and investigative work.

2.A review of the legislation governing charitable giving, which largely rules out newsgathering, to open up this source of funding for independent professional journalism, bringing the UK in line with countries like the US.

3.A voluntary set of media standards, leading to a digital kitemark, to make transparent the sourcing of news and to enhance the visibility of professional journalism on the web.

4.The release by the government of more data on the operation and performance of publicly funded bodies in accessible electronic formats to support both professional and citizen journalism.

5.More interactivity between parliament and citizens, with digital media used to democratise knowledge and the understanding of political processes.

6.The extension of media literacy teaching in schools to incorporate the unique challenges and opportunities of new media.

UPDATE You can now download a copy of the report here

Will a combination of models save the media?

Take a look at Mark Glaser's guide to alternative business models for newspapers.

There won't be however

a "silver bullet," an idea that will catch on as the savior for the newspaper business. Instead, a successful online newspaper will need a mix of many different revenue streams to survive in the digital age.

Instead Mark thinks that a combination of news aggregation,crowd funding,hyper local advertising,niche sites and paid content will be the model to get the news industry back into profitability.

Facebook-who will pay for trivia?

Peter Schwartz thinks that Web 2.0 is now deceased.

He says that

The evidence is irrefutable and it exposes the twin fallacies the concept of Web 2.0 has depended upon: 1) that people can build their worlds around - indeed, will want to build their worlds around - social networking; and 2) that social networking offers a viable, massively scalable business model.

He has a particular disregard for Facebook which has become the provider of trivia and reminds us that

Facebook charmed the technocracy in 2007 when Microsoft purchased a 1.6 percent stake for $246 million, valuing the company at more than $15 billion. Now, as we close the books on 2008, one might wonder if Facebook is actually worth anything.

The network he says is sufferung from burnout

the acrid smell of neurons frying, and eventually a longing to return to the wholeness of the physical world

As with much of the new media,the problem is profitability

The problem with Facebook is that it feeds on trivia, and in the process has become trivial itself.

And his conclusion

Social information and communication requires targeted aim, meaningful purpose, and self-correcting standards of quality. Universal social networks such as Facebook, almost by definition, cannot maintain this focus. For this reason, they cannot survive in their current form.

The power of the public

Forget Baby P or impending economic gloom.

Just a quick look at this post shows you what the public is really interested in

Tom Van Aart tells the story

The British public obviously cares a great deal about Strictly Come Dancing, perhaps more than anything else in the world.
After John Sergeant pulled out, we had an incredible response on the BBC message boards on Wednesday 19 October.
Eventually, I decided to close the Strictly Come Dancing board at 22:00 so the moderators could work through the backlog of messages. Personally I think Paul on the Central Communities Team and our external moderation provider did an amazing job to try and keep this under control.

Lets just get this into context 170,000 messages were posted before the day was out

Adaptable and Appropriate-that's what journalists need to be

That's according to Nicholas Brett,deputy managing director of BBC magazines who gave a talk here at Uclan yesterday afternoon.

After painting a gloomy picture for journalists ending with the claim that the audience had been given the tools to destroy journalism through laptops,mobile phones and digital cameras,he emphasised that journalism was still a profession and as such required unique skills.

"We can't all be plumbers" he said,pointing to cyberspace being literally cluttered with abandoned blogs and websites.
"An absence of editors" he continued in the new media environment means that "we are unable to separate the wheat from the chaff"

Some things will never change for journalists and these are unique to the profession.the most important being the ability to understand the reader.But journalists have other attributes which distinguish them from the blogger

1.Having great ideas

2.storytelling

3.Good writing skills

4.being obsessive about accuracy

5.a sense of timing

In order to survive in this new environment journalists must be able to be

a) Adaptable-being able to design and prevent information that will stand out in the eyes of the intended audience

b)be able to choose the medium that is appropriate to their audience.The great ideas will only work if they are delivered using the appropriate technology and this will change depending on the audience

Of course Brett comes with some credentials.However you see the commercialisation of the corporation,the magazine arm is the third largest publisher in the UK.has over 50 titles and is a brand to be trusted

Survey suggests more people want to use mobile technology to access media content

An interesting survey out of America( Ht-Paul Bradshaw).

It comes from Azuki systems and suggests that

Despite increased adoption, almost 80% of those surveyed said they wished it were easier to access information from the Internet on their mobile phones, and an equal percentage stated they wished it were easier to access rich media on their mobile phones. The majority of those surveyed pointed to a number of current obstacles to enjoying rich media on mobile. For example, 69% felt that the long time to download and/or play media ranked among their top three barriers, and 66% felt that difficulties finding and navigating to relevant content was a top three inhibitor. A number of shortcomings were also identified for iPhone and BlackBerry users.

On top of that more and more people are spending more and more time using their phones,eg

52% access the Web via their mobile phones, and 35 to 44 year-olds are leveraging this technology the most, with 60% spending time each week surfing the Web. Perhaps fueling a significant portion of this growth was iPhone adoption, which according to the survey results appeared strongest among 23 to 44 year-olds

Of course what this means if the results could be replecated over here is that media companies still have a fair amount of work to do in order to get their product to the mobile user.

Too much information

Alex William's piece which appeared in the New York Times over the weekend is well worth a read.

Entitled-Overfeeding on Information

He describes an

explosion of information technology, when combined with an unusual confluence of dramatic — and ongoing — news events, has led many people to conclude that they have given their lives over to a news obsession. They find themselves taking breaks at work every 15 minutes to check the latest updates, and at the end of the day, taking laptops to bed. Then they pad through darkened homes in the predawn to check on the Asian markets.

And I take the point.Yes in these bleak financial times it is difficult not to keep checking the latest financial movements and information technology has given us access to multiple mediums at an inexpensive cost.But is it taken over our lives?

Information Overload?

I wrote yesterday about the role of the New Media in the US elections and how important it has been for candidates to embrace the new technologies.

Well maybe there is another side to this.The phrase information overload.

Writing on the Biving's report Joe Crump finds himself overwelmed by the amounts of coverage of the Palin-Biden debate on Thursday night.He ponders

Because of my overuse of technology, I felt that it became difficult for me to form uninfluenced opinions. Other friends and colleagues have different opinions on the issue, but I feel that technology may serve only to distract from the actual debate.

It is an important point to make.There are many advantages to the new media era,many opinions to be held but at the end of the day there is only so much information that an individual can take in

The battle for hearts and minds

Dan Bennett's recent post on the frontline blog is well worth a read.Dan is a PhD student researching the impact of blogging and new media on the BBC's coverage of war and terrorism.

He look at how How Insurgents Shape the Media Landscape following his attendence at the insurgency research group

There were some interesting comments reported,including the Beeb's Gavin Estler who said that

the ‘battle for hearts and minds’ should be a central strategic consideration in combatting insurgents and noted that Osama Bin Laden believed 90% of the struggle with the West would be waged in the media.

He makes one very good point about the new media landscape though

One of the major new difficulties here is the vast canvas of the media landscape. No longer can audiences be divided into ‘domestic’ and ‘international’ as they have done in the past. Anything that is published can be potentially viewed by either the domestic or the international audience or in fact a multitude of different audiences with a variety of compositions.
And yet, the old view still prevails in a number of communications campaigns. This comes unstuck when your international audience views your domestic output.

Two way conversation or green ink brigade?

Many of those in favour of the new media point to the fact that it now allows journalists and readers to have a two way conversation.

Of course this was sort of possible in the old old days when you sent your letter to the editor.The ease of technology means now that it is simply a matter of tying on a keyboard,sometimes but not always having to register and hitting the return key.

The mere physical effort in writing a letter,putting a stamp on the envelope and walking to the post box,often meant that only the most dedicated made the effort and rage would be equally tempered by the amount of time it took to carry out the process.

Today outrage is instant and comments are not given the reflection of the writer that they once were.

I write this having read an article in the Sunday Herald (ht-Martin Stabe) by Tom Shields.Titled Journalists are no longer in charge of the asylum he writes

AS AN aged hack with attitude, I tend not to pay too much attention to this modern trend of newspapers inviting readers to give their views online. But I do scan the opinions expressed about my own articles.

and points out that

I am sure most of the posters (as they are called) on the Herald websites are in the tradition of the erudite, knowledgeable, insightful and witty letter-writing readers. It is just that some of the contributors to the electronic forums fall far below this standard.

Sadly,he says

many contributions on the message boards are reminiscent of those letters written in capital letters with green and purple ink. In the old days, journalists had the option of consigning these missives to the bin.
In the new age of instant communication, this appears not to be a choice. The journalists are no longer in charge of the asylum

Graduate challenges the local press

Here is a story to challenge the traditional media outlets.(via Hold the front page)

A graduate student from Staffordshire has set up his own local news website.It's called radical Press,co.uk and according to its website is

designed to provide an alternative source of news to the people of Staffordshire, which is currently dominated by the one newspaper, the Sentinel.
It is hoped that the website will provide news which protects the people, and questions authority, as well as providing a forum for debate about important topical issues in the county as well as the UK as a whole.

I wish you the best and good luck

Coverage of the Exeter attempted suicide bombing

Do read Gary Andrew's analyis of the coverage of the attempted suicide bombing in Exeter.

He looks at the coverage both in terms of the traditional media and new media and his conclusions?

The more events like this occur, the more opportunities and tools your average
reader will have to hunt down information. Twitter is becoming more useful as a
journalistic tool by the day, and once again showed its worth here.

any traditional media that ignores these social media tools and neglects the
user experience throughout breaking news, risks losing them elsewhere, possibly
for good.

but adds

if the paper or radio in question starts bringing together these tools on their website - ah, now that’s a different story.