Antony Loewenstein is a freelance journalist, author and blogger. He has recently published a book, The Blogging Revolution, which I have not yet had a chance to read, but I have listened to an ABC Fora podcast of its launch.
Loewenstein bemoaned the state of Australian media, citing the decline of Fairfax as an example. While not claiming to be a ‘blog evangelist’, he suggested the current void in investigative journalism could be filled by bloggers, or citizen media or network journalism.
While Loewenstein made the point that in Western media, bloggers tend to leach off mainstream news sources. In non-Western countries however, blogs often provide the only reliable source of news, and form an alternative to state-run media.
He used the quite horrific example of Egyptian police officers using video they had filmed of each other raping men in custody as a tool for intimidation. They would show it to those whom they were trying to coerce presumably. Bloggers in Egypt got hold of some of this footage and exposed the police’s brutal tactics, and forced the government to answer for this terrible behaviour.
The term blog has come to refer to an impossibly diverse collection of online content, operating as a sort of umbrella term without giving any specific information about what you are likely to find when you visit a blog.
Margaret Simons has attempted to address the lack of insightful vocabulary available to adequately analyse blogs. Speaking on The Media Report, she discussed a system she has come up with that incorporates nine categories.
One of these categories is the ‘Digest Blog’, where material from around the web is collected to one site, using links or summaries. Some digest blogs feature commentary, though not all do.
I would put CyberJournalist.net in this category. Brief posts under headings including Future of Media, Innovation and Citizen Journalism inform about developments in the online media world and provide links to useful content.
The Blog Scan is particularly relevant, with links to lots of recent postings from blogs elsewhere on the web.
Tips and Tools offer online writing tips from CJ.net founder Jonathan Dube – I liked his reminders to keep it ’short and sweet’, and to ‘break it up’. This section reinforces the sense of community CJ.net tries to foster, taking advantage of the technology it analyses and advocates. You can contribute to the site through comments and wikis and you can submit your work.
CJ.net can give some invaluable tips on where to find great online content. I found a link to Vanity Fair’s Blogopticon at CJ.net, which in turn has provided hours of entertainment.
Oh my News [I'm looking at the English-language International site] is a remarkably successful model of citizen journalism. Before addressing the journalism side of things, I think it is interesting to consider how tech-savvy South Korea is as a society. Access to broadband in SK is so widespread it is enough to make an Australian weep.
A friend of mine, Ms A. Rassall, has spent a lengthy stay in South Korea, and these are some of her observations of its cyber-assimiliated society:
The best bits were the technomarts…floors and floors of gadgets sometimes 8-10 stories high. One for cameras one for computers one for phones with tv screens on the top so people could receive the free broadcast straight to their mobiles. It was totally surreal to be on the trains every day and to be the only one not watching tv. In idea it’s forward thinking I guess, but in practise it feels old school because the phones are often larger than we’re used to seeing and it feels a bit like an episode of lost in space.
At the end of July when I heard Antony Funnell sadly reflect on the end of Channel Nine’s ‘Sunday’ program, I probably reflected to myself that The Media Report was safe at least. Not so.
The Media Report has been an invaluable resource for my studies and its axing leaves a gaping hole in media analysis on Australian airwaves.
Those savvy with the wiles of the world wide web are wary, I would suggest, of paying for the privilege of accessing content on the Internet. Or, as ShosOn, commenting on Mark Day’s blog at The Australian, put it: “Charge money for a podcast!? HAHAHAHAHAHHA [sic] Meanwhile, back in the real world…”
There are good examples of Internet users being beneficiaries of the largesse and altruism of various organisations all over the web, as well as instances of content providers finding ways to stay afloat while at the same time securing an audience.
Since 2006 Google has provided the 70000 residents of Mountain View, California (in Silicon Valley) with free WiFi Internet. It’s one way of keeping the neighbours happy.
Skype is another freebie available on the net. Computer-to-computer chat is free, while costs are attached to computer-to-phone calls.
All of the Australian magazine The Monthly’s articles are published on the Internet. Free important selected content is available for anyone to read on the website, while other material is restricted to online subscribers.
Film-quality footage used to be a prerequisite for broadcast, whereas now amateur video and stills have become perfectly acceptable to air and publish. Amateur footage offers immediacy and intimacy that traditional film does not. Due to access to so many media outlets, and near-saturation levels of media exposure, audiences now hunger for new angles and unseen footage of big media events, like the World Trade Centre bombings in 2001 and the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. In these cases it is often likely that the first images captured are from mobile phones and digital cameras, and even though they may be shaky and out of focus, they possess incredible news value to audiences who want to be shocked.
The advent of mo-blogs: This is a phenomenon that has largely passed me by, but perhaps I just haven’t been looking hard enough. I would like to hear about an effective example of mo-blogging other than the Newsplex project during the 2004 US election.
I foresee that as mobile phones become more sophisticated, and more capable to load web pages, the distinction between mobile-based and computer-based use of the internet will fade. An all-in-one PDA tool like the iMate JasJam opens so many possibilities for journalists.
