Monday, September 19, 2005
New Media in the Newsroom: Tools or Props?
Wired News: CNN Hacks New TV Technology
News organizations are competing to master the interactive media, from blogging to RSS. This Wired article tours CNN's attempt to harness the latest digital gimmicks to promote the CNN brand of news reporting:
Of course "raw, incoming information" is another way of saying unconfirmed often innaccurate information. But when television is competing with the internet, accuracy will be sacrificed for speed.
How much of this is just a fancy set designed to give the appearance of interactive media and how much reflects a real transformation of news gathering and distribution remains to be seen. Can this technology turn a mass audience of passive spectators into news-gathering particpants, assessing the "raw information" as it flashes by? Or is this an interactive Potemkin Village?--all style and no substantive interaction. Most of it would seem to be more efficient tools for distribution: advanced narrowcasting for more precisely targetted audiences. The information CNN wants to collect here is not news but audience demographics and behavior, allowing the network to track its audience for marketing purposes. Statistical proof of audience engagement: let the data-mining begin! Interactivity here means tell me who you are so that I can better serve (market) you.
This transformation is a signal that the mainstream news media have accepted the challange posed by the latest developments in IT and are now competing to be have the latest gizmos to distinguish themselves from their competitors. How much of their audience will they leave behind by embracing these new techniques and practices? Will this attract a younger tech-savvy audience to the news that advertisers salivate over? Or will it just alienate the greying audience for news?
News organizations are competing to master the interactive media, from blogging to RSS. This Wired article tours CNN's attempt to harness the latest digital gimmicks to promote the CNN brand of news reporting:
Launched in August and modeled after the White House Situation Room -- where presidents confer with advisers on fast-moving matters of utmost importance -- CNN's Situation Room has become something of an R&D lab for news-gathering technology.
"It's like bringing viewers inside our control room and allowing them to move through all of that raw, incoming information with us," Blitzer told Wired News."
Of course "raw, incoming information" is another way of saying unconfirmed often innaccurate information. But when television is competing with the internet, accuracy will be sacrificed for speed.
How much of this is just a fancy set designed to give the appearance of interactive media and how much reflects a real transformation of news gathering and distribution remains to be seen. Can this technology turn a mass audience of passive spectators into news-gathering particpants, assessing the "raw information" as it flashes by? Or is this an interactive Potemkin Village?--all style and no substantive interaction. Most of it would seem to be more efficient tools for distribution: advanced narrowcasting for more precisely targetted audiences. The information CNN wants to collect here is not news but audience demographics and behavior, allowing the network to track its audience for marketing purposes. Statistical proof of audience engagement: let the data-mining begin! Interactivity here means tell me who you are so that I can better serve (market) you.
This transformation is a signal that the mainstream news media have accepted the challange posed by the latest developments in IT and are now competing to be have the latest gizmos to distinguish themselves from their competitors. How much of their audience will they leave behind by embracing these new techniques and practices? Will this attract a younger tech-savvy audience to the news that advertisers salivate over? Or will it just alienate the greying audience for news?
