Thursday, November 16, 2006
Lessons of an Internet age
"Most major news networks are rushing to reach out to their viewing audience for images that might make a contribution to news coverage. Citizen journalism has quickly infiltrated an industry sometimes sluggish to make big changes, and the phenomenon demonstrates that a mainstream industry has learned its lesson from the revolutionary impact of the Internet."
--Joe Light, Globe Correspondent
The potential for the public to contribute content that would aid in the news would be extremely beneficial to the relationship between broadcast and audience. In addition, the images that would not normally be available to the public are available. These television shows on the SpikeTV network which provide the viewer with a collection of intense video that was capted by personal video cameras are appealing because we're able to see footage of events that we would otherwise not see.
"In the next couple of months, ABC plans to create a website that will allow viewers to submit images and video. Slavin expects that some of that material will make it on the air but worries that the network will also eventually start to receive fake material."
Well, they only tell us what they want us to know anyway...Some people believe that the moon landing in 1969 was a fraud. In an era such as this, news organizations can't possibly rely on sending the reporting team to the site of a developing story once word of the story arrives. Reporters need to be equipped with the technology that will enable them to report on a story if they were to accidentally stumble upon a developing event, or if they happened to just be down the block from an event unfolding. The video quality of compact cameras will certainly progress with innovation, and it's definately in the interest of reporters to have this mobile technology on hand at all times.
"If a network does not find easy ways to incorporate viewer-contributed content into broadcasts, it can rest assured that another network will, which has pushed the evolution of citizen content forward more quickly."
It's the footage that the individual on site posesses that will be the most intimate. We, the public, don't wanna see only the aftermath, we wanna see it happen to get a better sense of what it was to be there as the events unfolded. A reporter can get to the site of where a tornado had touched down and present the images, but the people wanna see the tornado touch down.
We wanna experience a day in Iraq from the street corner while sitting on the couch in the privacy of our homes. You hear about how many soldiers were killed in Iraq each day, but you don't hear how many Iraqis perished. You don't see the families destroyed with grief at the loss of a child. You don't see the men crying, after their wife--the woman they had loved since they were a child--is vaporized right in front of their eyes.
Not that we want to see gore. We don't want to see horror. But we do want to feel more intimate with the news, because it's important to have a better understanding of what it was like to have been there when it happened.
We wanna experience Hurricane Katrina and feel what these people are going through without actually being there ourselves. If we had seen footage of what went on in the Superdome, heads would have rolled for the lack of response to the hell these people went through.
The footage from the events of September 11th, 2001 were so breathtaking because we saw the events as they were happening. And while we all wish that we hadn't seen that happen, we will surely never forget what we saw that day. Those images will stay in our minds forever, and that's because it was almost as though we were there...
http://www.boston.com/business/personaltech/articles/2005/07/16/lessons_of_internet_age/
--Joe Light, Globe Correspondent
The potential for the public to contribute content that would aid in the news would be extremely beneficial to the relationship between broadcast and audience. In addition, the images that would not normally be available to the public are available. These television shows on the SpikeTV network which provide the viewer with a collection of intense video that was capted by personal video cameras are appealing because we're able to see footage of events that we would otherwise not see.
"In the next couple of months, ABC plans to create a website that will allow viewers to submit images and video. Slavin expects that some of that material will make it on the air but worries that the network will also eventually start to receive fake material."
Well, they only tell us what they want us to know anyway...Some people believe that the moon landing in 1969 was a fraud. In an era such as this, news organizations can't possibly rely on sending the reporting team to the site of a developing story once word of the story arrives. Reporters need to be equipped with the technology that will enable them to report on a story if they were to accidentally stumble upon a developing event, or if they happened to just be down the block from an event unfolding. The video quality of compact cameras will certainly progress with innovation, and it's definately in the interest of reporters to have this mobile technology on hand at all times.
"If a network does not find easy ways to incorporate viewer-contributed content into broadcasts, it can rest assured that another network will, which has pushed the evolution of citizen content forward more quickly."
It's the footage that the individual on site posesses that will be the most intimate. We, the public, don't wanna see only the aftermath, we wanna see it happen to get a better sense of what it was to be there as the events unfolded. A reporter can get to the site of where a tornado had touched down and present the images, but the people wanna see the tornado touch down.
We wanna experience a day in Iraq from the street corner while sitting on the couch in the privacy of our homes. You hear about how many soldiers were killed in Iraq each day, but you don't hear how many Iraqis perished. You don't see the families destroyed with grief at the loss of a child. You don't see the men crying, after their wife--the woman they had loved since they were a child--is vaporized right in front of their eyes.
Not that we want to see gore. We don't want to see horror. But we do want to feel more intimate with the news, because it's important to have a better understanding of what it was like to have been there when it happened.
We wanna experience Hurricane Katrina and feel what these people are going through without actually being there ourselves. If we had seen footage of what went on in the Superdome, heads would have rolled for the lack of response to the hell these people went through.
The footage from the events of September 11th, 2001 were so breathtaking because we saw the events as they were happening. And while we all wish that we hadn't seen that happen, we will surely never forget what we saw that day. Those images will stay in our minds forever, and that's because it was almost as though we were there...
http://www.boston.com/business/personaltech/articles/2005/07/16/lessons_of_internet_age/
Comments:
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A substantial, thoughtful post.
You have hit on a key point. Viewers want to be there. The need for immediate live images direct from the ground zero of any disaster is driving the media to compete for images and footage that cell phones and video cameras offer. This allows the audience to be there over and over again, long before the professional photographers arrive at the scene. This new immediacy drives the news cycle and creates an impression of total coverage.
But is it superficial coverage?
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You have hit on a key point. Viewers want to be there. The need for immediate live images direct from the ground zero of any disaster is driving the media to compete for images and footage that cell phones and video cameras offer. This allows the audience to be there over and over again, long before the professional photographers arrive at the scene. This new immediacy drives the news cycle and creates an impression of total coverage.
But is it superficial coverage?
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