The digital/electronic era is upon us and is very rapidly killing the traditional print era of information. “New Media”, specifically the internet is the primary reason why the newspaper industry is on a sharp decline. More people are subscribing less to the traditional form of the news via physical newspapers and instead are getting their news online either via the internet or their mobile/ digital applications . Currently, ordinary citizens are using the digital technologies to connect on a global platform and are contributing their own ideas, voices and information thereby participating in an “online” society. The ability to generate your own information/ news and share it with the rest of the world is presently at a click of a mouse and even the mere definition of journalism and its components are itself evolving. This paper specifically addresses the shift of journalism from the print era to new era of digital media and theoretically comes to the resolution that instead of fearing what the future has in store for the dissemination of news in the “new media” landscape, we must embrace this new form of journalism, which involves the collaboration of society as a “participatory culture” and “global village”.
Through out history, access to news and information was a privilege for only a certain demographic who had access to wealth and power. The print era shifted that exclusion of information because of the ability to provide affordable mass-produced quantities of news and information to all sectors of society. This era however also creates a “sense of distance between reader and writer, electronic technologies, through their speed and audiovisual form, bring us together. Yet as opposed to face to face communication, the electronic media keep us apart (Strate, 2008)”. The audience that seeks out news today have become more fragmented because of the birth of the internet. They must thereby develop new ways to discern factual and legitimate news sources from other less reliable sources online as opposed to the traditional routine of a cup of coffee with the morning paper , where fact checking was never part of the process because of the legitimacy and reputation that a news publication held. A new form of journalism has now been defined because of the advent of online news sources.
Journalists used to be heralded as the “gatekeepers” of news that solely possessed the power on what topics the public should discuss and argue about which is dubbed as the agenda setting- theory. However, this system is now being challenged not only by the technology on how news is shared and transmitted to an audience via digital sources but the actual audience themselves. Through “web blogging” the audience themselves have a way to participate in what news gets written and disseminated. Blogging are personal publishing systems where a user generates their own content on a website. Because of the inexpensive cost to publish a “blog”, an explosion of websites from topics ranging from one’s personal College dorm life experience to how to make delectable cakes are all available for the public to peruse. “Blogs are in some ways a new form of journalism, open to anyone who can establish and maintain a Web site, and they have exploded in the past year,” writes Walter Mossberg, technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal (Shayne Bowman, 2003).
There are several theoretical perspectives that can explain why the traditional newspaper is declining. Media ecologists, such as Marshal McLuhan theorize that the medium itself needs to be inspected closely rather than the actual content that is generated. In journalism, the media environment is the world wide web where people acquire their news from a “global village” or a collection of sources. We are all interconnected to each other because of the technologies we use. McLuhan came up with the theory of a “global village” in the 1960’s and it has taken over several decades before we are able to fully recognize what he was theorizing about. There is no denying that McLuhans’ “global village” is synonymous to what we presently know as the internet! Thus, McLuhan’s global village analogy can be directly aligned with the perspective of new journalism because news and information is now pulled from several sources . A theory that is much similar is Jenkin’s “participatory culture” which has fully emerged because of the advent of new media. Jenkins’ idea of a participatory culture is when a grass roots movement of people are equal and active in society contribute to a particular issue versus information that is fed to the public or controlled by the top down systems such as media conglomerations. Jenkin’s also introduces the “Principle of Collective intelligence” which is exactly what the internet has now evolved into, a digital space where one can disclose what they think and share their views to a “global” online audience. This collective sharing of information also pertains the ethics of information where people share what they know about the world around them thus contributing to the greater good of society because of the wealth of information available to everyone. Since the motivations of the newspaper conglomerations in the print era are driven by economics to make a profit, it can not rely on subscriptions alone. Newspapers need to sell ad space to advertisers on the actual physical copy. Because the primary motivation of newspapers are to make a profit, the ethics of information and diversity are restricted and regulated.
There are several ways an online news source fulfills the function of a printed paper besides the economic profits that mainly drive newspaper conglomerations. New media is changing the very concept of what news is because online, the audience defines what is news worthy through the thoughts and comments they generate through forums and blogs. News has become more personalized and people only search for news items that they are generally interested in. As mentioned above, journalism traditionally filtered out content and had it was the editors that possessed the power to pick what was news worthy. Online, it’s a much different story as bloggers do not have editors silencing their opinions on a matter. There is more of a personal connection because people can respond to a news item via blogging in a forum and the author has the capability to enter into discussions with the audience. The only human connection on the printed paper was to write a letter to the editor. There was no guarantee of an interactive discussion since the printed paper has space restrictions. If a news item or letter to an editor didn’t make the cut on the printed paper, it was lost into oblivion. There are no space restrictions online which makes for a media environment with more dialogue between reader and author.
However there is much criticism for online news sources on how it fails to fulfill the function of the printed paper. Because of the abundance of websites that hold differing view on one single news topic, cross referencing facts by “cross- clicking” is a necessity. Being able to discern bloggers that try to remain as unbiased as possible can be a difficult task. Readers must therefore pull on several reliable online trade papers that have online versions before taking a bloggers view on a particular issue at hand. The question of much debate is if bloggers are even “journalists” to begin with, who are writing with a thorough and unbiased objectivity for the truth or are they mere pundits on the web? Traditional journalists have editors to review their reports as opposed to bloggers whose facts are checked by the audience after the fact that it has been disseminated by their post. Bloggers are able to quickly post a story unlike the traditional “ journalists” who have editors, yet their news item may contain facts which are seemingly questionable.
A disclaimer for “CNN I Report” claims the following: “”I Report is a user-generated section of CNN.com. The stories in this section are not edited, fact-checked or screened before they are posted” (http://www.ireport.com/). I go to this website because people from around the world can essentially be a journalists reporting news that is local in their area as it happens. The CNN website has a reliable system of verifying the stories that people submit by simply placing a label on the video content that are generated by it’s users. A label that states “Not vetted by CNN” mean that the story has not been checked or cleared by a CNN online editor. A red logo with CNN I Report in the left hand corner of a video means that the video has been verified by a CNN producer. What transpires on the site are a collection of “normal people” who choose what is news worthy and as an audience I am able to view stories that are interesting to me, thus making my news viewing more personalized. Anyone can sign up for their own account and share any stories that are of interest to them. There is also a discussion link where people can debate on the current “hot topic” of the day. The best Ireports that get “vetted” also have a chance to make it to any of the CNN platforms such as their television news channel.
The crisis that is facing the newspaper industry and changes in new media technology are interconnected because the reader now has the capacity to be more interactive than ever before. Let us not fear the unknown and instead embrace these shifts in media eras by giving the audience the tools to have their opinions and thoughts heard.
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