Globalization: infectious connectivity

Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod’s Did You Know videos have been doing the rounds for a while now. As Karl Fisch says in his blog, The Fischbowl:

“The various versions have been viewed well over 20 millions times (my guess is that with downloaded versions and audience showings it’s probably closer to 30 million times, but 20 million would be the safe number). It’s been shown to audiences large and small, educational and corporate and everything in between. It’s been shown to the leaders of our national defense and to incoming congressmen. It’s been shown by university presidents and kindergarten teachers, televangelists and politicians, folks just trying to make a buck and those trying to save the world”.

The essence of the videos is to capture the escalation of technological advancement and also the globalization of society. Fisch’s response is tongue in cheek:

“I think the fact that a simple little PowerPoint can be viewed by so many folks and start so many conversations means that we live in a fundamentally different world than the one I (and most of you reading this) grew up in.”

Indeed it is phenomenal how large the impact of connectivity owing to the Internet is and both the content of Did You Know and its circulation show just that.

Fisch and McLeod’s latest Did You Know project takes a slightly different route than the previous versions. Did You Know 4.0 was created for The Economist’s Media Convergence Forum which is taking place on the 20-21st of October 2009 in New York. Although mainly focused on marketers, the forum hopes to demonstrate the impact of the evolving media landscape – the fading of the print and the embrace of the online.

Amongst the media blogs that I follow, (and I apologise to those I forget to mention and promise to add to my food for thought should my memory be jerked) these entries provide interesting insights into the debate on the death of newspapers:

Matt3010’s Blog – The Death of Newspapers?

Organ Grinder Blog – The Death of Newspapers (series)

The Guardian blog is a series of posts which cover the debate on the fading print press from a historical perspective and is currently at the 1920s and will be interesting to follow through.

The Did You Know 4.0 nicely captures the changing media landscape and the absorption of technology in to our daily lives. A common theme that runs through the latest Did You Know video and its predecessors is that there is undoubtedly an infectious buzz around technology that simply cannot be avoided. Everyone from businesses to the media down to individuals are scrambling to keep up with the escalation of technology and missing the bus means missing out.

The video is certainly worth a look and so here it is below. It even gets a nice mention in this week’s Time magazine.

Commercial media walking the tightrope?

Many column inches (and web scrolls) were dedicated to Rupert Murdoch’s bold declaration on the 6th of August 2009 that web content should be paid for. We are all used to Murdoch’s bold statements but this was one to be taken seriously because it is already happening. The prolific Wall Street Journal for instance, one of Murdoch’s treasures, now charges for its online content. Aside from merely commenting on the fact that access to journalism on the web should become paid for, Murdoch also emphasised that the quality of journalism is at stake: “Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting” (Murdoch, 2009). This declaration could be a hit at citizen journalism or Murdoch’s last attempt at salvaging his golden years of news making – whatever said and done it certainly provokes food for thought on the status of journalism on the web.

The initial first response to all of this is simply will the web-user public go for it? If journalism was to come at a price, will news-sites still attract an avid fan base? This is open to debate and only time can really tell. I for one feel that this will raise serious problems for online news. The Internet, from its onset, has been about access to a free world of endless information. The Internet culture as we know it is based around the extraordinary power of sharing, creating and experiencing an entire information society – for free. Rupert Murdoch’s comments must not be dusted under the carpet though – for years quality print journalism has come at a price, surely the same must apply to quality web content? After all, the journalism business, be it print, broadcast or online, is at the end of the day just that – a business. Peter Anderson, in an insightful article entitled ‘Challenges for Journalism’ argues that “people have to care about decline in the quality of news services” for it to be taken seriously. With this in mind, I find it hard to believe that people won’t go elsewhere if their favourite news site starts charging. Another aspect to consider is if news sites do retain a section of their audience of paid-for content, this is more than likely to be people who can afford to pay for content on a regular basis.

If we are to go with this presupposition that commercial journalism is likely to be given the finger should they start to charge – what does this mean for the rest of the media society. Surely this means a bow in the armour for public-funded media? News sites such as BBC Online and the ABC website have gained huge audience numbers and are likely to up in popularity if commercial news sites start charging. It came as no surprise then when a different Murdoch protested that public-funded media such as the BBC was creating the death of independent media. Speaking at the Edinburgh Television Festival in August 2009, James Murdoch stated “The expansion of state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision”. There is certainly a tense thin line between paid-for journalism and handing over control to the competition.

Which then leaves the other obstacle for independent media – citizen journalism. This current buzz word in the media world has been liberating in terms of providing the lay man with a voice. The recent Oxford Social Media Convention as reported by The Guardian focused on the fact that journalism must start to take notice of the rise of citizen journalism. In an article for the IEE Review entitled Rise of the Blog, Stephanie Gordon states that there are “currently some 50 million blogs worldwide” and they are starting to be taken very seriously within the information society (Gordon, 2006). This undoubtedly creates competition for paid-for online journalism as there is growing amount of free journalism that is available on the Web.

The future for online journalism seems very much up in the air particularly with the question of paid-for content. Can Murdoch’s intervention take off successfully or will it simply initiate a new found reign for public-funded media and citizen journalism?

Only a text, Tweet or tap away folks!

Today’s consensual understanding of the Internet and its impact upon globalization is that the world in a sense has been brought closer together. As Giddens convincingly defines it, it is the “intensification of world-wide social relations, which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa” (Giddens, 1990: 64). Cultures are able to intermingle like never before and the Internet has taken communication to a different level altogether.

Although distances and localities are being brought closer, what is the impact of the Internet on the traditional home setting? An article entitled ‘The family together in front of the TV is dead: Facebook, Twitter and Spotify rule’ appeared in the British Times newspaper at the beginning of August. It reveals that the digital age, instead of bringing individuals closer, is in fact pushing families further away from each other.

                                                   

The article begins by commenting on how traditionally, from the introduction of the first BBC radio in 1922, electronic media has brought families closer together.

A report released by Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, suggests otherwise of the advent of new technologies. The report shows “how far Britons have become addicted to the internet for entertainment, becoming separated from other family members in the process” (Sabbagh and Foster, 2009).

The report interestingly reveals that “while television viewing is holding up at 3 hours 45 minutes a day, that is only because people are surfing the net at the same time” (Sabbagh and Foster, 2009). Technologies and the demands of the digital age therefore create what can be described as a “distraction culture” – we are constantly preoccupied by some gadget or the other.

Much debate has been placed on the ironic un-sociability of social-networking sites and whether technologies make us more socially-insular people. However, it is interesting to reflect upon whether this is infiltrating our family lives, in whichever small way. Are the days of family members gathering on the veranda for a chat ‘just because’ disappearing because Dad’s on the computer, Mum’s on the phone and Jane is looking up Cambodia on Google Maps on her Iphone?