Mobile And Social Media Journalism The Democratization Of Information And Knowledge

Media has become the glue that holds society together. It is a form of communication, identity, power, and control. Through media narratives, we are encouraged or even coerced into living our lives in a certain way. Some people have started to reject media, portraying it as an unpleasant aspect of society that is, inherently biased towards a certain elite. This book attempts to unpack the history, current state, and future of certain specific forms of media. It specifically tackles social and mobile media as popular manifestations of the importance of media in our lives today. The book will also inevitably speculate and hypothesize about the future of media as it becomes more accessible, democratized, fragmented, and complex. The basic understanding of media is its manifestation as a transmission technology. In reality, this understanding does not fully explain the complex dimensions of media today. For example, we know that media can be a powerful political tool through the spread of propaganda. We also know that media has become a way of life, with some people choosing to carve out an alternative universe on the World Wide Web (WWW). The Internet was an important game changer in as far as it opened up the world to all sorts of potential consumers of media. As our recent history has shown, it is the Internet that is challenging the traditional forms of media. Many traditional publishing houses find that users are mainly interested in online content. The old-fashioned broadsheet newspaper is in danger of becoming obsolete. Indeed, many of these traditional outlets have decided to join the drive towards digitization in the hope that they can improve their fortunes in the process. Some have been more successful than others in terms of winning more customers and maintaining some sort of loyalty with those users that can get all the news that they want at a click of a button. Media technologies are also not always benevolent. The malevolent manifestations of modern media include cyberbullying and revenge porn. All those are social evils that are being created or even exaggerated by the presence of modern media. The profession of journalism has not gone unscathed by the changes in media. Anybody can setup a very successful website or even masquerade as a citizen journalist. That does not mean that everyone engages in this kind of activity is performing an illegal activity. There is a place for citizen journalism, not least because it helps to counter some of the excesses of the traditional media which was never accountable to its audiences. The commercialization of modern media is another theme that has preoccupied analysts and academics. Media is now a legitimate and lucrative way to make money. The internet has changed many, otherwise, closed avenues for access clients and even capital. The advent of cryptocurrencies would not have been possible without the power of media coming into play. Ultimately, this book seeks to demonstrate that medians a reflection of our lives, personalities, and multiple identities today. The book also poses a tantalizing question of how we can make media the safe and productive tool that it is often portrayed as but ends up falling short because of the way it is used and perceived. This book will help students of journalism and culture studies to navigate the dynamics of modern media today. The book has been written in an accessible format to emphasize the informality of modern media, as opposed to the traditional approach to journalism. Book jacket.

Fuelled by a distrust of big media and the development of mobile technologies, the resulting convergence of journalism praxis (professional to alternative), workflows (analogue to multipoint digital) and platforms (PC to mobile), result in a 24-hour always-on content cycle. The information revolution is a paradigm shift in the way we develop and consume information, in particular the type we call news. While many see this cultural shift as ruinous, Burum sees it as an opportunity to utilize the converging information flow to create a galvanizing and common digital language across spheres of communication: community, education and mainstream media. Embracing the digital literacies researched in this book will create an information bridge with which to traverse journalism’s commercial precarity, the marginalization of some communities, and the journalism school curricula.

How the structure of news, information, and knowledge is evolving and how news media can foster social connection. While the public believes that journalism remains crucial for democracy, there is a general sense that the news media are performing this role poorly. In The Social Fact, John Wihbey makes the case that journalism can better serve democracy by focusing on ways of fostering social connection. Wihbey explores how the structure of news, information, and knowledge and their flow through society are changing, and he considers ways in which news media can demonstrate the highest possible societal value in the context of these changes. Wihbey examines network science as well as the interplay between information and communications technologies (ICTs) and the structure of knowledge in society. He discusses the underlying patterns that characterize our increasingly networked world of information—with its viral phenomena and whiplash-inducing trends, its extremes and surprises. How can the traditional media world be reconciled with the world of social, peer-to-peer platforms, crowdsourcing, and user-generated content? Wihbey outlines a synthesis for news producers and advocates innovation in approach, form, and purpose. The Social Fact provides a valuable framework for doing audience-engaged media work of many kinds in our networked, hybrid media environment. It will be of interest to all those concerned about the future of news and public affairs.

A state-of-the-art account of what we know and do not know about the effects of digital technology on democracy.

This book analyzes various digital transformation processes in journalism and news media. By investigating how these processes stimulate innovation, the authors identify new business and communication models, as well as digital strategies for a new environment of global information flows. The book will help journalists and practitioners working in news media to identify best practices and discover new types of information flows in a rapidly changing news media landscape.

Media scholars, artists, activists, and journalists discuss how the uses of the emerging “Social Web” redefine the public sphere and influence mainstream journalism. In an age of proliferating media and news sources, who has the power to define reality? When the dominant media declared the existence of WMDs in Iraq, did that make it a fact? Today, the “Social Web” (sometimes known as Web 2.0, groupware, or the participatory web)—epitomized by blogs, viral videos, and YouTube—creates new pathways for truths to emerge and makes possible new tactics for media activism. In Digital Media and Democracy, leading scholars in media and communication studies, media activists, journalists, and artists explore the contradiction at the heart of the relationship between truth and power today: the fact that the radical democratization of knowledge and multiplication of sources and voices made possible by digital media coexists with the blatant falsification of information by political and corporate powers. The book maps a new digital media landscape that features citizen journalism, The Daily Show, blogging, and alternative media. The contributors discuss broad questions of media and politics, offer nuanced analyses of change in journalism, and undertake detailed examinations of the use of web-based media in shaping political and social movements. The chapters include not only essays by noted media scholars but also interviews with such journalists and media activists as Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Media Matters host Robert McChesney, and Hassan Ibrahim of Al Jazeera. Contributors and Interviewees Shaina Anand, Chris Atton, Megan Boler, Axel Bruns, Jodi Dean, Ron Deibert, Deepa Fernandes, Amy Goodman, Brian Holmes, Hassan Ibrahim, Geert Lovink, Nathalie Magnan, Robert McChesney, Graham Meikle, Susan Moeller, Alessandra Renzi, Ricardo Rosas, Trebor Scholz, D. Travers Scott, Rebecca Statzel

Now in its second edition, Mobile and Social Media Journalism continues to be an essential resource for learning how journalists and news organizations use mobile and social media to gather news, distribute content, and engage with audiences. Merging theory and practice, the book includes checklists and practical activities in every chapter, enabling readers to immediately build the mobile and social media skills that today’s journalists need and which news organizations expect. The second edition retains a focus on journalism’s core values, such as authentication, verification, and credibility, while guiding readers on how to apply them to digital media activities. The book also offers an in-depth discussion of the audience’s active role in producing content, how mobile devices and social media have changed the way the audience consumes news, and what these changes mean for journalists. Updated to address the latest trends in multimedia journalism, the second edition includes two new chapters: "Writing mobile-friendly web stories" and "The spread of fake news". This is a valuable resource for journalism students, as well as media professionals seeking to update their skills. The book also features a companion website at www.mobileandsocialmediajournalism.com, providing online resources for students and lecturers, including video tutorials, industry news, and sample assignments. The book’s Twitter account (@MobileJourn) and Facebook page (fb.com/MobileandSocialMediaJournalism) share the latest industry trends and offer tips for teaching the topic.

This book offers a timely insight into how the news media have adapted to the digital transformation of public communication infrastructure. Providing a conceptual roadmap to understanding the disruptive, innovative impact of digital networked journalism in the 21st century, the author critically examines how and to what extent news media around the world have engaged in digital adaptation. Making use of data from news media content production and distribution both off- and online, as well as user and financial data from the U.S. and internationally, the book traces how the news media embraced and reacted to key developments such as the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989 and the launch of Google in 1998, Facebook in 2004, and the Apple iPhone in 2009. The author also highlights innovative organizations that have sought to reimagine news media that are optimized for digital, online, and mobile media of the 21st century, demonstrating how these groups have been able to stay better engaged with the public. Disruption and Digital Journalism is recommended reading for all academics and scholars with an interest in media, digital journalism studies, and technological innovation.