Socio-technological Impacts on

Journalism StudiesPaul Wedel

Kenan Institute Asia

Journalism and Technological Change

2008 Qik goes beta

2006 Twitter launched

2005 Youtube starts

2004 Facebook launched at Harvard

2003 MySpace starts

2001 Podcasting, Wikipedia

1998 Google search engine, first blog

1994 Mozilla, first web browser

1993 First cellphone SMS

1992 voice and video over Internet

1990 worldwide web

1980 Cable television news

1928 Broadcast television news

1920 Radio news 1800 Daily newspaper 1450 Gutenberg movable type 1041 Chinese block prints50 BC Handwritten news

Technology changes impacting

news

Paradigm of 18th-19th century journalism

Event

Reader

Newspaper

Editor

Journalist

Reader’s choices: Read a different story

Read a different newspaper

Write to the editor

Paradigm of 20th century broadcast journalism

Event

Viewer

Broadcast

Editor

Journalist

Reader’s choices: Switch to a different channel

Phone in a comment

A new, more complex paradigm is developing

for 21st century journalism

Event

User

Website

Editor

MultimediaJournalist

Newspaper

Blog

Twitter

Alert

VodcastPodcast

PC

Cellphone

IPod

Kindle

Muckrack

Journalism research is needed to…

• Understand the way people interact with the new devices

• Find out what works and what doesn’t– Writing styles - Interactivity– Slideshow duration - Design and layout– Video length - Linkages

• Map how the different media interact• Develop new business models to make it

sustainable• Establish new ethical codes and practices

Choices for the consumer

• Traditional newspapers, TV and radio• Newspaper website• News websites (GlobalPost.com)• Podcasts and Vodcasts• Blogs • Twitter and Twitter accumulators

(MuckRack)• Alerts and search engines• Variety of interfaces

A power shift in journalism

Old:Owners,Editors

New:Consumers,Content providersSocio-

technological change

Traditional journalist roles and skills

Reporter/writer

Photographer

Cameraman

Reporter

Producer

Editor

Reporter/writerLayout

Journalist roles and skills

Mojos:

Photographer

Reporter/writer

Videographer

Producer

Copy editing

Design

Programming

Entrepreneur

Ethics and standards for the new journalism

•Manipulating images•Speed vs accuracy•Plagiarism•Fact-checking•Correcting errors – name and shame

•Objectivity

Finding a new business model for news

•Newspapers and television news have lost:– Classified ads – better done online, searchable,

personalized– Young readers – get alerts or Twitter for information

online– Breaking news – can’t beat the Internet– Closeness to consumers – can’t beat social

networking

• Possibilities for online news:– Subscription– Personalized ads– Hyper-local news and ads

The challenge for journalism studies

•To understand the new way the new journalism is working and changing

•To provide the skills students need to be successful in the new journalism

•To set realistic standards for the profession

•To find business models that enable good journalism to survive