The Huffington Post provides a wide range of news stories from various contributors on current events and popular culture. In contrast, Media Lens focuses specifically on political issues, often critiquing the BBC and mainstream media for perceived omissions or biases in their reporting. WikiLeaks publishes anonymous leaks of classified or sensitive government documents to shed light on controversial policies and actions.
2. Julian Assange
What did you find out?
What did you question?
What is your opinion?
3. Objectives
By the end of the lesson you should
have;
Understood Keen’s theory and views
Understood Gillmor’s theory and views
Applied and challenged the theory through
class discussion and/or debate
Research and Present your case studies
4. Starter
Where do you/your parents learn about
the news?
Where do they get their sources from?
5. The evolution
1945: People gathered around radios
1963: Kennedy’s death via TV (earlier
newspapers and magazines)
Sep 11 2001: News 24, internet
21st Century: Blogs, IM, Chat, internet on
phones
Gillmor
6. We the Media: Grassroots
journalism, by the people for the
people
‘Journalism transformation
from a twentieth century
mass-media structure to
something profoundly more
grassroots and democratic.’
(Gillmor)
7. The Cult of the Amateur
Andrew Keen
‘There will be over five
hundreds million blogs by
2010, collectively corrupting
and confusing popular opinion
about everything from politics,
to commerce to arts and
culture. Blogs have become
so dizzyingly infinite that
they’ve undermined our sense
of what is true and false...’
9. Not everyone is a journalist
‘...these days kids can’t tell the difference
between credible news by objective
professional journalists and what they read on
joeshmoe.blogspot.com...posting is just another
person’s version of the truth; every fiction is just
another person’s version of the facts.’ (Keen)
10. Regular people are Journalists
‘...news was being produces by regular people who
had something to say and show, and not solely by
the “official” news organisations that had
traditionally decided how the first draft of history
would look. The first draft was being written, in
part, by the former audience. It was possible – it
was inevitable – because of the internet.’ (Gillmor)
11. What are we Talking about?
‘...the internet has become a mirror to
ourselves. Rather than using it to seek
news, information, or culture, we use it
to actually BE the news, the information,
the culture.’ (Keen)
12. The BIG Media
‘...treated the news as a
lecture. We told you what
the news was. You
brought it in, or you
didn’t.’
‘Tomorrow’s news
reporting and production
will be more of a
conversation, or a
seminar.’ (Gillmor)
14. Today
Is it just the ‘BIG media’ that sources our
news now?
Think about where you get your
information from?
Where do you read about the news?
15. The 3 Major Constituencies
Journalists
Accuracy and fairness
Important
Shape larger conversations
Gather facts and report them
Newsmakers
Rich and powerful discovering new vulnerabilities
New ways to get out their messages
Allies (politics)
The former audience
Once the consumers
Helping create a massive conversation
Grassroots becoming professionals
More voices and more options
Gillmor
16. The Big media
Aim: to make high profit
Greed
Readers and advertisements
Care more for advertisements than quality
journalism
Who will do big investigations
Pay expensive lawyers
Expose
But is anarchy a solution to good news?
Gillmor
17. Big brother
The government censors all information
Politian's shut off information that the public
need to know.
Is the grassroots journalism information
tracked?
Gillmor
18. Who’s democracy?
‘a rather narrow and very privileged slice of
polity – those who are educated enough to
take part in the wired conversation, who have
the technical skills, who are affluent enough
to have the time and equipment .’ Tim Stites
Gillmor
19. We are Monkeys
We are just monkeys to the neo
digital world. Dancing to the
world of the internet.
‘What is more disgusting that the
fact that millions of us willingly
tune in to (youtube) such
nonsense each day is that
some Web sites are making
monkeys out of us without our
even knowing it.’ (Keen)
20. Is it Democratic?
‘The rise of the citizen-journalist will help us listen.
The ability of anyone to make the news will give
new voice to people who’ve felt voiceless – and
those words we need to hear. They are
showing all of us – citizen, journalist,
newsmaker-new ways of talking, of learning.’
(Gillmor)
21. Is it Democratic?
Keen calls it ‘collective intelligence’
e.g. Google, the results it gives you is the
sites which have been clicked on the most
‘...ninety million questions we collectively ask
google each day; in other words, it just tells
us what we already know.’ (Keen)
So what new knowledge/wisdom are we
really acquiring?
22. Discussion
Has new technology made the media
more democratic?
23. Case study
Have a look at various news sources
Online ‘BIG media’ newspapers
Online Blogs
Examples to compare (non BIG media)
The new significance
Media Lens
Wiki Leaks
Z Net
The Progressive (.org)
The New significance
How is the news content different?
Whose voice is heard?
What issues do they talk about?
How accurate is the news source?