Week 7: Transversality
Transversality by definition is a mathematical term to reference how spaces interact. In the context of this week's lecture and readings, transversality can be understood as a way to examine how journalism has changed from its traditional form and is merging into another space: the digital/online platform. When looking at the 'framing' of the changing state of journalism as an issue, the most common debates surrounding this change both academically, professionally and socially most commonly involve loss of jobs, loss of revenue, citizen journalism, a loss of tradition, or more broadly, the general 'decline' or 'death' of journalism.
However, if we were to step outside the framing of this issue and think transversally about the 'death' of journalism, we would ask ourselves what is the actual situation with the merging of traditional journalism to digital and networked media?
Well, the short answer is journalism isn't dying, just changing. Yes traditional job roles for graduate journalists are scarce. For hopefuls like myself, the dream of having a story published on the front page of a broadsheet newspaper, printed on paper with real ink, is probably a dream best hung up to dry. Or, as soon to be graduates we could pull our heads out of the sand and embrace the new and improved state of journalism. Essentially I would say the role nor importance of quality journalism has not been lost, but rather enhanced with the potential of new media technologies. Today we can read about a news event *and* watch the actual accompanying footage of that event. Also, unlike the traditional broadsheet newspaper which advocated for a mass audience, aside from the unlikely event that your 'letter to the editor' would be published, online journalism has created a more transparent society as we can comment on published stories and be involved in debates with other readers.
In looking briefly at the current state and effects of the changing state of journalism, it is clear that in fact journalism is not dying, there is still a lot of journalism happening, it is just changing in mostly form and content to an extent as well.