As I have previously stated on this blog, I believe the impact of the internet is highly important and highly valuable. I believe that the technological advancements within the world of journalism will lead to more effective manners in which information is provided to the largest number of people possible in the easiest, most accessible ways.
http://cyberjournalist.org.in/advance.html
This article opens with “Journalism has been going through several major technological changes during the past few decades. The pace of these changes is quickening now, altering the practice of the profession as never before. These changes, which encompass a wide range of activities from news gathering to dissemination, are bringing many benefits. At the same time, the profession faces some negative impacts too.” That pretty much sums it up right there, but the information it provides is an obvious prediction of what was to come.
“It is only a matter of years before digital cameras are widely used by the photojournalists. It will free the photojournalist from dark room processing and time consuming manipulations with the enlarger. Wet processing is bound to become a thing of the past, if digital cameras achieve the resolution of films.”
http://docserver.ingentaconnect.com/deliver/connect/routledg/1461670x/v1n2/s3.pdf?expires=1285600459&id=58810789&titleid=744&accname=UNIVERSITY+OF+MARYLAND&checksum=0117B048EA654935ECF81C1C1D4086AF
This is a study by John Pavlik of the University of Minnesota. This study looks at the impact the internet has on “how journalists do their work, the content of news; the structure or
organization of the newsroom; and the relationships between or among news organizations,
journalists and their many publics.” Pavlik is critical of how the internet has impacted the manner in which journalists get information. He is skeptical about the notion that some journalists may compile information and entire interviews over email. However, he does note that “improve the quality of news-gathering, especially when on deadline or in after-hours situations.” He questions whether or not the speed at which information can be posted online is a positive influence or a negative one, comparing it to the columbine shootings, asking whether you would have wanted the know immediately, or if you would have wanted more fact checking beforehand. While critical, this study does provide solid information about the impact the internet has on news reporting.
http://blogs.reuters.com/from-reuterscom/2009/12/11/how-will-journalism-survive-the-internet-age/
This is the text from Chris Ahearn’s remarks on whether journalism survive the internet age from the Federal Trade Commission’s workshop on how internet has effected journalism. His proposed answer to that question is yes, “journalism will do more than survive the Internet Age, it will thrive. It will thrive as creators and publishers embrace the collaborative power of new technologies, retool production and distribution strategies and we stop trying to do everything ourselves.”
Ahearn says, “We see a world that opens up the newsroom and news gathering process to allow the highest quality and valuable content to flow better from creators to publishers. This new network of syndication is predicated on serving the needs of publishers and their audiences – not what one organization or another simply wants to produce.”
The impact of the internet on journalism will prove to be incredibly valuable in keeping journalism afloat in the deterioration of traditional media. While print sources may go down, the online world will prove to be a much more interactive and useful environment for producing information.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Searching versus Surfing project
the following pertains to a class research project which explores the difference between searching the internet and surfing the web.
The study Searching versus Surfing by Kevin Wise and Hyo Jung Kim defines the line drawn between merely “surfing” the web, aimlessly wandering the internet with no real goal, and “searching” browsing with a defined purpose. and that makes a lot of sense: you are much more likely to remember something that you had a desire to look for than some random piece of information.
In an experiment performed by members of Microsoft research, the experimenters had 20 different users view over 300 different web pages while conducting information foraging and page recognition tasks. The goal of the experiment was to see if there is a trend surrounding where internet users tend to look at a given page. This experiment found that viewers tend to look at the top left corner and surrounding areas: somewhat in the middle and the mid right area as well. These are all users who are surfing the web, browsing with an aimless goal. With this in mind, it makes a whole lot of sense why these participants in the first study were not able to remember as much as those who were searching the web because those with the designated goal were not just looking at images in passing: they were part of an assigned destination.
So when it comes down to it, it really just seems as if surfing the web is ultimately a huge waste of time, because it seems as if you are not really going to remember much of a given page after a glance unless you are really trying to delve into the information given.
The study Searching versus Surfing by Kevin Wise and Hyo Jung Kim defines the line drawn between merely “surfing” the web, aimlessly wandering the internet with no real goal, and “searching” browsing with a defined purpose. and that makes a lot of sense: you are much more likely to remember something that you had a desire to look for than some random piece of information.
In an experiment performed by members of Microsoft research, the experimenters had 20 different users view over 300 different web pages while conducting information foraging and page recognition tasks. The goal of the experiment was to see if there is a trend surrounding where internet users tend to look at a given page. This experiment found that viewers tend to look at the top left corner and surrounding areas: somewhat in the middle and the mid right area as well. These are all users who are surfing the web, browsing with an aimless goal. With this in mind, it makes a whole lot of sense why these participants in the first study were not able to remember as much as those who were searching the web because those with the designated goal were not just looking at images in passing: they were part of an assigned destination.
So when it comes down to it, it really just seems as if surfing the web is ultimately a huge waste of time, because it seems as if you are not really going to remember much of a given page after a glance unless you are really trying to delve into the information given.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
History and Overview
The state of journalism has changed immensely in the past decade. Ten years ago, it really was just print and broadcast. Nielsen reported on December 31st, 2000 that there were 108,096,800 in North America alone. Today, there are 266,224,500 internet users. That is 146.3% growth between 2000 and 2010. In the world, internet population grew 444.8%. That is an enormous amount of potential for expansion into the digital world. Ten years ago, the internet was beginning to boom. The year 2000 was right in the middle of the “dot-com bubble,” which saw stocks values rise due to growth in the internet. At this time, if you wanted news, the main places where you could get it were on TV, newspapers, magazines, and the radio.
Now think about how far journalism has come since the invention of the internet. Ten years ago the internet still existed. If you woke up and wanted to know what the weather was going to be like for the week, you could still go online and look, granted the connection speed was still pretty slow. If it was 1960, you would have to get a newspaper to find out. That was pretty much the only way to find out. And if you wanted the hard news, you really had the option of watching the evening news or read the evening edition of a newspaper.
Here is a brief history of technology in journalism: In the 1930’s radio was the dominant medium for news and during the 40’s, the Federal Communication Commission forbade the creation of new radio and television stations during war time. The 50’s saw the rise of television, giving new opportunities in advertising. By 1960, 90% of American’s owned television sets. The 80’s saw a rise in the magazine industry. Magazines were able to set a specific interest directed at specific audiences, causing many newspapers to flop as production costs rose. This was also when the internet was first born
All news stations like CNN and Fox News did not even emerge until the 80’s and 90’s, so before that, evening news stations really were really at the top of the news pyramid. Today if you want news, your options of where to go are pretty much endless. You’ve got CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, CSPAN, and more on TV. Even if you watch MTV, every so often you get bombarded in the middle of a commercial break with news breaks (see, even MTV cares about keeping the youth up to date on current events). You can pull out any cell phone made in the past 3 years with that has internet access and use any sort of news app, making information available pretty much anywhere that you have bars. You have social networking sites such as facebook and twitter where your own friends and peers have the capability of posting their own takes on the news. You have endless amounts of blogs where citizens are able to report their opinions on various different topics from politics to entertainment. The history of journalism continues to write itself in a very interesting manner.
Sources: http://history.journalism.ku.edu/1990/1990.shtml
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
Now think about how far journalism has come since the invention of the internet. Ten years ago the internet still existed. If you woke up and wanted to know what the weather was going to be like for the week, you could still go online and look, granted the connection speed was still pretty slow. If it was 1960, you would have to get a newspaper to find out. That was pretty much the only way to find out. And if you wanted the hard news, you really had the option of watching the evening news or read the evening edition of a newspaper.
Here is a brief history of technology in journalism: In the 1930’s radio was the dominant medium for news and during the 40’s, the Federal Communication Commission forbade the creation of new radio and television stations during war time. The 50’s saw the rise of television, giving new opportunities in advertising. By 1960, 90% of American’s owned television sets. The 80’s saw a rise in the magazine industry. Magazines were able to set a specific interest directed at specific audiences, causing many newspapers to flop as production costs rose. This was also when the internet was first born
All news stations like CNN and Fox News did not even emerge until the 80’s and 90’s, so before that, evening news stations really were really at the top of the news pyramid. Today if you want news, your options of where to go are pretty much endless. You’ve got CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, CSPAN, and more on TV. Even if you watch MTV, every so often you get bombarded in the middle of a commercial break with news breaks (see, even MTV cares about keeping the youth up to date on current events). You can pull out any cell phone made in the past 3 years with that has internet access and use any sort of news app, making information available pretty much anywhere that you have bars. You have social networking sites such as facebook and twitter where your own friends and peers have the capability of posting their own takes on the news. You have endless amounts of blogs where citizens are able to report their opinions on various different topics from politics to entertainment. The history of journalism continues to write itself in a very interesting manner.
Sources: http://history.journalism.ku.edu/1990/1990.shtml
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Introduction
This blog will examine the way people access news through different mediums in this digital age, and how technology affects the way that news is reported, as well as the various facets of digital journalism. Since the beginning of the 21st century, technology has seeped its way into just about every aspect of our lives, allowing us to become more immersed in the things we love and care about. In the world of journalism, technology has had a number of effects of the way news is reported and consumed.
This blog will look at the various wheres and hows of news consumption, and what kind of influence technology has on the world of journalism, and will try to answer a multitude of different questions. Such as :does technology have an influence on the amount of bias in the reporting of news? Has the recent popularity of blogging had an impact on story leads and how news is broken? What kind of effect do mobile devices have on the way people are able to consume their news.
As a journalism major, I hope that investigating this topic will give me a better understanding of the technological influence in news than my other peers in the college. I believe that the influence of technology in journalism is going to prove to be incredibly important in the future of news, based on the recent drop in broadcast viewers and print sales. For the generation that I grew up with, the internet is incredibly important. We are the Facebook age. We depend on the internet. The internet for our demographic is a primary source for news consumption. Broadcast is still number one for older age demographics, but I am going to make a prediction that as this generation grows into adulthood, since we have grown up with internet dependence, the internet and other digital facets will prove to be the most important and valuable ways of delivering information to the largest number of people possible.
Recently in my News Writing and Editing course, my professor asked us if we believed the influence of technology was frightening to us. I was semi-confused as to why he would ask us this question, considering that this influence is may prove to be a decent boom in journalism. Through this investigation, I hope to prove that technology is not scary and is in fact a good thing within the world of news.
This blog will look at the various wheres and hows of news consumption, and what kind of influence technology has on the world of journalism, and will try to answer a multitude of different questions. Such as :does technology have an influence on the amount of bias in the reporting of news? Has the recent popularity of blogging had an impact on story leads and how news is broken? What kind of effect do mobile devices have on the way people are able to consume their news.
As a journalism major, I hope that investigating this topic will give me a better understanding of the technological influence in news than my other peers in the college. I believe that the influence of technology in journalism is going to prove to be incredibly important in the future of news, based on the recent drop in broadcast viewers and print sales. For the generation that I grew up with, the internet is incredibly important. We are the Facebook age. We depend on the internet. The internet for our demographic is a primary source for news consumption. Broadcast is still number one for older age demographics, but I am going to make a prediction that as this generation grows into adulthood, since we have grown up with internet dependence, the internet and other digital facets will prove to be the most important and valuable ways of delivering information to the largest number of people possible.
Recently in my News Writing and Editing course, my professor asked us if we believed the influence of technology was frightening to us. I was semi-confused as to why he would ask us this question, considering that this influence is may prove to be a decent boom in journalism. Through this investigation, I hope to prove that technology is not scary and is in fact a good thing within the world of news.
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