In the future, online comments may not be anonymous

This New York Times article addresses an issue we discussed in class tonight. A website owner will not be held accountable for comments made by a third party on that site. However, according to this article, the Times may soon hold the people accountable who publish comments if the Times removes the ability to comment anonymously. Maybe this would get rid of the anger and hateful posts. Some might argue that removing anonymous posts will harm "free speech," but if you won't put your name on something you write maybe it shouldn't be said.

The public square of information and the Internet

This is a great column from the New York Times' David Brooks. It deals with exactly what we've been talking about in class. Brooks even refers to "The Daily We." He quotes from a study that finds that the Internet isn't sending people into information "ghettos" but exactly the opposite. That does not mean people are going to sites with an open mind, that can't be measured, but it does go against the assumption that Internet users will only go to sites that agree with their political ideology. The study from the University of Chicago found that people who visited highly partisan sites were MORE likely to visit websites that conflicted with their views. Essentially, polarization isn't the Internet's fault.

Kids consume a lot of media

This is informative, especially for those of us in higher ed who tie our fates to the decision making abilities of 16-18 year olds. The article gives a summary of a study about the media consumption habits of children. Lots of television watching, especially for those children who have televisions in their rooms. It may inform how and where we get our messages to potential students.

I'm linking from an article on Digg so we'll see how that works. It may not matter. Enjoy.

Social Media and how it should work into your crisis communication plan

This is a good article on social media and how it relates to crisis communications. It makes a good point that in a crisis, especially after a tragedy, an organization should suspend normal social media posts.

Using YouTube for Crisis Communication

This is a good example of an organization using a YouTube post for crisis management.

Bloggers consider themselves journalists

Well, I know I spouted off in class last week that most bloggers should not be considered journalists, but, according to a study by PR Week and PR Newswire and reported on TechCrunch, more than half off all bloggers believe that they are journalists. However, it is telling to note that 91 percent of bloggers report that they refer to other blogs for research while fewer than 40 percent of print reporters reported using blogs for research. As Dr. Groves told us in class last week, a print reporter is trained to "check everything out." It is difficult to confirm if information on a blog is true. . .  by looking at other blogs. There is value in speaking to sources in-person, on the phone or even via e-mail to get information and confirm what another source is telling a reporter. The "old-school" term for that kind of reporting is "wearing out the shoe leather." It would be interesting to see a study that asks print and broadcast reporters if THEY consider bloggers to be journalists. Obviously, bloggers at the New York Times are held to journalistic standards, but I wonder what view old media reporters have of self-labeled new new media "journalists."

My twitter page

I have two twitter accounts. One for Drury University. The other is personal.

A blog I follow: Comm. 630

I read the Freakonomics blog on NYTimes.com.
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/

The importance of blogging-Comm. 630

Blogs have changed the media landscape by turning every reader, viewer or listener into a potential publisher or broadcaster. This two-way conversation never existed until the advent of "social" media. In the 1970s, the news media was a voice from above telling viewers, readers and listeners "that's the way it is." Think about Walter Cronkite or Woodward and Bernstein at the "Washington Post," they broadcast or wrote the stories and the news consumers had little ability to join the conversation except through snail mail to the media outlet, around the water cooler or over the back fence. Now, with the advent of an online water cooler via blogs and other "social" media, news consumers have the ability to comment on stories and directly communicate with reporters. The "blogosphere" is widely credited with questioning the story that eventually cost CBS News Anchor Dan Rather his career (http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/1/28/172943.shtml). Rather showed documents in his story that allegedly revealed that President George W. Bush evaded the draft. Those documents were later revealed to be false. It was a blogger who first made the claim that the documents were forged. Prior to the internet, it would have taken the work of another media outlet or a CBS ombudsman to uncover the false documents.
More voices, more choices. Just as cable television news provided more news outlets for consumers in the 1980s, blogs provide nearly infinite outlets for news and coverage of issues that consumers care to read about. While traditional media is limited by the "news hole" in broadcast or print, the online media is unlimited. However, this comes with a caution. The traditional news media is held to a standard of fairness and a process that includes reporters, producers, editors, photographers and news directors who attempt to ensure fairness and accuracy in all news stories that hit the air or print. A blog has no requirement to be fair or even truthful. As the Johnson article says, "..while traditional media are expected to maintain standards of fairness and balance, such expectations are not extended into the blogosphere (Johnson, et al., 2008)." The article goes on to say that blog readers will gravitate to blogs that validate their beliefs. It gave the example of conservative readers who gravitated to conservative blogs because they view the mainstream media as liberal.
Fragmentation. Just as cable and satellite television have fragmented viewers, the blogosphere can increase that fragmentation. Prior to cable, viewers had few television choices beyond the big three networks, PBS and a few independent channels. Now, with hundreds of channels focused on everything from travel to cooking to sports, the television experience for two people living in the same house may have very little overlap. The same could be true for blog readers. Those that gravitate to conservative blogs may have a much different perception of the same news event as those that read left-leaning or traditional news outlets.
The future. As newspapers continue to cut staff the hyper-local-blog may be the outlet that saves local news media. I can see a day when a blog focusing on east Springfield becomes the preferred news outlet for certain readers. However, how to monetize that model to make it a person's employment to produce print stories, photograph events and even videotape sporting events is elusive. For traditional media, most outlets have realized that they have to join the conversation and can no longer engage in a one-way monologue with viewers, readers and listeners. According to the Johnson article, this dialogue is especially important for politically active people who, traditionally, have been the most consistent news consumers. Keeping those people engaged is important for the survival of traditional media outlets.
Conclusion. Blogs have democratized the ability to produce news and "flattened" the media landscape for producers and consumers. However, media consumers should approach their "news" consumption from blogs with caution knowing that bloggers do not hold themselves to the same journalistic standards as traditional media.