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Arts 2090 assessment

 ‘It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves—the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public—has stopped being a problem.’ (Clay Shirky, ‘Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable’, http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/). How much do digital and networked media dismantle the “publishing industry”? Is it being replaced? If so, what is replacing it? If not, what is surviving of the older publishing industry, and how is it doing so?

Digital and networked media do not dismantle the publishing industry, rather they force the traditional pillars of the publishing industry to become more creative and package their content in new modern and inventive ways to appeal to an increasingly tech savvy audience. I do not believe that the publishing industry, specifically news publication, can ever be replaced, but rather will transform with the times. Its metamorphosis can already be seen today, with news media outlets maintaining an online presence through their online websites, and reaching out to their audience through Facebook and Twitter, and online subscriptions and apps making it possible to read the paper on eBook readers such as the iPad and Kindle. However amongst all this change, there are integral parts to the publishing industry that will always survive, and to ensure their survival they have adopted some facets of new media. Some aspects of the older model publishing industry that remain in the face of media and publishing 2.0 are method, brand awareness, and the role of the journalist.

An integral part of publishing is how the information is published since after all, media is an industry that is significantly dependent on publishing. Thanks to media 2.0 many new methods of publishing have opened up, the most obvious example being blogs, but traditional publications such as books and newspapers are still surviving. The publishing industry has adapted to technological changes, repackaging their content to suit the needs of the hi-tech consumer through their constantly updated websites, apps for news outlets such as The New York Times, and eBooks for eBook readers such as the iPad and Kindle. Even then though, it must be noted that for newspaper publications specifically, “The hypothesized mass migration of news consumption behavior is not supported by the facts. Some migration from offline to online news consumption has occurred, but this number (12 percent direct substitution) is less than many believe. Another 22 percent of U.S. adults have substituted some online news for offline news, but for a substantial portion of this group, the online news media acts as a complement rather than as a substitute”.[1] Statistics like this show that for the most part despite the much-lauded “death” of the publishing industry as we know it, old school publishing undeniably remains an integral and chief mode of consumption today. This fear of new technology usurping established practices could be comparable to when the television was first introduced, and people predicted the demise of radio, we can now see today with foresight that in fact the two can co-exist together. Online news as a compliment to physical publications and offline news can in fact be very profitable for the publishing industry. It has been reported that the media outlet, The Wall Street Journal, generates $65 million through its’ pay walls for its online subscriptions alone.[2] The consistency of the offline news readership ensures that the traditional method of publication, print media, will survive, and the profitability of the latest media practices as a compliment not a replacement ensure that the publishing industry will not be dismantled in the face of new media technologies as they generate revenue in different ways to continue surviving.

A significant characteristic of publishing is the reputation and prestige behind certain publishers. Established media outlets are implicitly trusted by the public to publish fact, since the traditional method of news publication tries to ensure that their information is accurate, as opposed to the Internet where anything can be published without any substantiated fact behind it. This is something that will not and cannot be replaced by any form of new media, simply because it comes with time and being consistently reputable. The traditional publishing industry has credibility, which new media tries to make up for with enthusiasm. Nothing can replace the reputation and social awareness that the big names in publishing and media carry. A contemporary example of this in play can be seen in the leak of the Osama Bin Laden’s death. Before the President of the USA Barack Obama made the official announcement, the news first broke on Twitter, the social networking/micro blogging site, specifically through Keith Urbahn, the Chief of Staff for Donald Rumsfeld the former Secretary of Defence in the US and noted American politician, with his tweet "So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn."This was met with much skepticism from Twitter users with tweets such as “Osama bin Laden is dead?!?! Is it true, or just hoax”, “Hasn't Bin Laden Died every year since the 9/11 attacks happened? #news #Hoax” and “I thought this Bin Laden dead thing was a twitter hoax, but now I'm watching CNN and it seems to be true. Wow!”[3] The widely held belief seems to be that information cannot be trusted unless it comes from a verified source, and reputable media outlets produce content that comes from verified sources, and as the last quoted tweet shows, their words are given more weight and the irreplaceable commodity of trust, in the eyes of the public. There is an implicit trust between established media publishing entities with its audience and society at large that digital networked media cannot replace. The older publishing industry survives because it has proven over time and consistency that it is a reliable source for news.

  Another feature behind traditional established media entities that new media does not have is brand and public awareness. This can be attributed to time, for example The New York Times has been around since 1851, whereas the Internet is a relatively new technology in comparison. To ensure that they not only remain but also profit from being in the public sphere, media outlets such as The New York Times and New York Magazine are signed with talent agency ICM to broker film and television options for their articles. Many an article has gone on to become a film, in the case of New York Magazine their articles “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night” written by Nik Cohn and “The Return of Superfly” written by Mark Jacobson became the films “Saturday Night Fever” and “American Gangster” respectively.[4] Forward thinking partnerships protect the legacy of prestige and brand name recognition behind media entities.

  Another aspect of the publishing industry that is still surviving and remains relevant is the role of the journalist. Perhaps the most key issue, despite all the changes the publishing industry is going through, the underlying goal has never changed, which is to report on the news as it happens. Digitized networked media has made it possible for everyone a “citizen journalist”, which has rendered the role of credible journalists even more important. I would define a credible journalist as someone employed by a news outlet, not someone writing up whatever they want and posting it on a blog on the Internet. The role remains, to report on the news, but thanks to technology the methods and demands have changed. As a result of newspapers and their websites, the news cycle is constantly running 24/7, so there is a persistent demand for the content to be constantly refreshed and updated, as well as informative and correct. This has forced the journalist to embrace technological advances such as Twitter to enable of-the-minute reporting from anywhere in the world. It is undeniable that “the rise of the Internet as a technological innovation has influenced journalism”,[5] and as such reporting itself has changed, since there are now so many ways that the news can reach the audience. However even with all these increasing pressures placed on them, journalists are still expected to be “trusted guides” for society at large. Dependable journalism has combined with technology to make reporting the news get across even more efficiently in a time sense, but also reach more people through various modes of communication.

  While it may seem like digital and network media are taking over from traditional broadcast media, this in fact a fallacy. Rather than being completely replaced and being rendered irrelevant, established old school entities are appropriating new modern day practices in order to survive and maintain their existence. If you look at news publishing in particular, it is evident that key elements such as the original form of publication, print, associated prestige, and the role of the journalist all clearly remain in the face of the so called “dismantling of the publishing industry”. It must be noted that even though they may not be replaced, in order to survive and maintain their relevance, they have had to embrace some new media practices and get inventive to keep their audience engaged as they move into the future. It is hard to predict the future of publishing, I often feel that there is too much fuss made over the so called “death of print’’, while it cannot be denied that circulation is down as a statistic, there is no reason why they cannot co-exist side by side, as compliments to each other.

List of References:

  Ahlers D, ‘News Consumption and the New Electonic Media’ The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics Winter 2006, vol. 11 no. 1 pg 29

  ‘How Osama bin Laden death story unfolded on Twitter’ in The Sydney Morning Herald, published: 2nd of May 2011, viewed: 31st of May 2011, < http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/how-osama-bin-laden-death-story-unfolded-on-twitter-20110502-1e4jn.html>

  ‘ICM Signs to Rep New York Magazine Articles for Film and Television’ in Deadline, <http://www.deadline.com/2011/06/icm-signs-to-rep-new-york-magazine-articles-for-film-and-television/>, published: 1st of June 2011, viewed: 2nd of June 2011.

Lăzaroiu G, ‘New Forms of Networked Communication: The Fabric of the Global Digital Age’, Annals of Spiru Haret University, Journalism Studies; 2010, Vol. 11, p225

  Perez-Pena R, ‘Times to Stop Charging for Parts of Its Web Site’ in The New York Times, published: 18th of September, 2007, viewed: 31st of May 2011, < http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/business/media/18times.html?ex=1347768000&en=88011ab45717e39d&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink>

•   [1] D Ahlers, ‘News Consumption and the New Electonic Media’ The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics Winter 2006, vol. 11 no. 1 pg 29

[2] R Perez-Pena, ‘Times to Stop Charging for Parts of Its Web Site’ in The New York Times, published: 18th of September, 2007, viewed: 31st of May 2011, < http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/business/media/18times.html?ex=1347768000&en=88011ab45717e39d&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink>

[3] ‘How Osama bin Laden death story unfolded on Twitter’ in The Sydney Morning Herald, published: 2nd of May 2011, viewed: 31st of May 2011, < http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/how-osama-bin-laden-death-story-unfolded-on-twitter-20110502-1e4jn.html>

    [4]‘ICM Signs to Rep New York Magazine Articles for Film and Television’ in Deadline, <http://www.deadline.com/2011/06/icm-signs-to-rep-new-york-magazine-articles-for-film-and-television/>, published: 1st of June 2011, viewed: 2nd of June 2011.

[5] G Lăzaroiu, ‘New Forms of Networked Communication: The Fabric of the Global Digital Age’, Annals of Spiru Haret University, Journalism Studies; 2010, Vol. 11, p225

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Week 11 Blog Post

So week 11 was about “distribution, aggregation, and the social”. In summary, I guess it’s about how all different kinds of data come together and are presented to us and their influence on our lives. The article on Truthout explores this isdea with Danah Boyd making the observation that “We live in flows…This idea suggests that you're living in the stream: adding to it, consuming it, redirecting it.”             

The concept of living in a network society and traditional methods such as broadcast media being usurped by network and social media is something that is entirely relevant to our lives today. Thanks to technology, most notably the Internet, everyone can be their own broadcaster, generating and uploading their own content without any kind of middleman, leading to the overload of information and content, and an increasingly shorter attention span as society bounces from one micro trend to another, (memes are something that comes to mind), what used to be 15 minutes of fame has been reduced to 5.

I strongly agree with the writer Hubert Guillard’s statement that “…although simulation creates cognitive connections, it is possible we suffer from too much simulation”. A major flaw of the so called “democracy” of the internet is that everyone’s opinions are out there, but they are not all equally credibly or even equally heard. A very recent example that springs to mind is Rebecca Black, who received a lot of worldwide attention and subsequent derision and mocking for her music video “Friday”. Without bringing personal opinions into the matter, it is clear that any kind of potential praise or even supportive comments against her detractors has been lost in the flood of criticism, highlighting the inherent inequality that exists.

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Week 9 Blog Post

Visualisation is definitely the best way to digest scientific information, I personally cannot deal with the jargon I don’t understand, it makes my head spin, so I guess for an unscientifically inclined plebeian like me, pictures (the simpler the better) are the best way to go. The reading, ‘The Global Warming Skeptics versus the Scientific Consensus’, on the Information is Beautiful site, does a great job of presenting both sides of the climate change debate, even if for a visualisation it’s a bit word heavy. It’s effective since it provides an unbiased view of events, yet is also confusing because it makes it harder for the responder to pick a side, since for every argument a sceptic might have, the supporters have their own case, and vice versa.

Another interesting visualisation on their site was ‘What Does China Censor Online?’, which presents the information quite simply, with the urls of banned sites, and keywords and phrases of banned topics, which seems to include everything from Facebook.com to Falun Gong.  Visualisations such as these two are important for the public to know, and they are highly effective at presenting their information. Yet they are not commonplace or easy to find, for us it is since we’re doing this course and constantly being given these examples and information, but for the “public sphere” it is not so easy to come by.

These visualisations were created to inform the public, and are so easily accessible thanks to technology, but probably don’t find a big audience, in contrast to that image on the Metro.co.uk article about climate change, the polar bear clutching onto a melting piece of ice, an image that was clearly chosen to tug at the heart strings of the public, showing a definite bias the Information is Beautiful climate change visualisation didn’t have.

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dayum straight. 

comicallyvintage:

How to get ahead.

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Week 8 Blog Post

Visualizations! I think this topic is really interesting because I’ve never really thought about how information was presented to me and how all these complex relationships exist between the information, how its’ purpose was communicated, how it was presented, and how that affects the audience.

For instance, I never contemplated the meaning of the dashed line until now. The reading “The Dashed Line In Use” explores the dashed line as hidden geometry, movement, paths, expectations, ephemeral material, and borders or seams. The dashed line is definitely the unsung hero of graphics. There is so much hidden meaning and significance that is placed on the humble dashed line that goes relatively unnoticed and people take for granted, yet at the end of the day, as the Plato reading points out, “It is in reality only an image”. This further highlights the importance of images and graphics and visual language when it comes to publics and publishing, for instance even words, which are considered not visual but literal, depend on visual elements such as size, font, colour, etc to communicate their meaning.

The whole audiovisual performance concept and “vj” is something I’ve never even heard of before this course. This is definitely more “art” focused and less media and publishing focused. The Vague Terrain reading, written by Carrie Gates, makes the observation that “the social and the historical dimensions of live audiovisual performance are also interactive, as VJs engage in dialogue not only with audiences, but also with history, technology, and other creators”. What makes these performances so interesting is that through these performances they can explore many issues at once, but also get the audience participating with their work. The article links to a video by Defasten, which is quite chaotic with its visuals and its music, so much so that sometimes I had to pause the video, but the best moments are when the visuals and the music match each other, for example when the beat stutters so do the visuals on the screen.

The idea of vj and the readings were quite confusing, especially the Vague Terrain article and the Plato dialogue, but definitely got me thinking.

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arts2090 week 7, wikileaks

Wikileaks is a highly controversial issue, it has managed to divide people into two camps of strongly for or against. Personally, I can't agree with either side. 

On one hand, it's true that the government does abuse it's power, and often keeps civilians in the dark about what they get up to. This has led to many atrocities being committed in the name of "democracy" and protecting the country eg war in Iraq, Afghanistan etc. My degree is International Studies, and it's often argued that in order to come to any sort of resolution there has to be transparency in negotiations, and Wikileaks has provided that, by revealing a lot of the secrets behind international diplomacy.

But on the other hand, this information is often loaded, and would be dangerous for so many to know. For a country to function, we have to trust the leaders that were elected will do the right thing by us, as scary as that seems. This information could do more harm than good, some people are calling for the Wikileaks sources to be executed, (http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/should-we-execute-wikileaks-sources/question-1364987/) And in another unfortunate incident, Wikileaks accidentally revealed its own sources, http://us.gizmodo.com/#!5156265/wikileaks-leaks-its-own-sources-donors-due-to-email-mishap .

But what does this mean from a publics and publishing angle?

I think journalism is supposed to be impartial, it's probably the last method of checks and balances for the government, and even then it's no secret politicians will often try to sway publications towards their own agenda, but even so journalism should strive towards the absolute truth. When Julian Assange released the video "Collateral Murder", he seriously undermined his credibility.

When publishing can have grave consequences for those involved, should it continue? How much is publishing the truth worth?

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