Yesterday I was reading a fascinating article about Nancy Meyers, one of the very few successful female Hollywood directors, on the New York Times Magazine website. I came across a word that I didn't know and highlighted it, with the intention of pasting into a search engine, when a little speech bubble with a question mark in it popped up, as if the word itself was beckoning me to ask it about itself. I had never seen this before, and was intrigued. I clicked the bubble and a reference page opened up in a new window!
After playing around with it a bit, I've found that your results will vary. Sometimes you'll get entries from multiple dictionaries and a thesaurus, sometimes just one basic dictionary definition. Results for proper names are mixed: selecting the Beatles yields entries from Columbia Encyclopedia, the Fine Arts Dictionary, and WordNet, but nothing comes up for film score composerHans Zimmer or the recent film "The Dark Knight." Nothing comes up for "Skyping" and "cougar" has only one definition (which does not apply to the word's use in the article).
It's an imperfect tool, but I imagine it will improve with time. Innovations like this are what make the New York Times website one of the best news sources. The New York Times is one of the few big papers that has truly embraced the move to digital and is using new technology to make news more accessible. Rather than dumbing down the writing to reach a broader audience, the paper (news entity? news organization?) continues to produce thought-provoking, original stories, and has simply made it easier for readers to look up the words they don't know!
The New York Times, like all legacy media, has faced and will continue to face many challenges as technology and the demands of consumers change, but has demonstrated that it is pragmatic and adaptable, and I believe that it will continue to be one of the most respected and widely-read national news sources.
The New York Times' website is more appealing than the print paper, not just because it is free and easy to access, but because it encourages and rewards its readers' curiosity in ways a print edition never could. If anything, this is evidence that the future of journalism is not the bleak, watered-down drivel that many fear it will be. If those who truly care about good journalism work towards using new tools to make news better, rather than seeing them as a threat, the journalism of the future could be far better than any we have known.
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
We Make the Media
I dragged myself out of bed early Saturday morning to attend We Make the Media, my second conference at the Turnbull Center. My husband was nice enough to drop me off before he headed over to Blitz Ladd to watch the Ohio State v. Michigan game with some of our other friends from Columbus.
I tweeted from my phone (not one of those new-fangled smart ones) throughout the day, but left my laptop at home. I'm kind of sad that I missed out on reading all the Twitter discussion that went on during the conference (which I did read as soon as I got home), but am also glad that I was able to focus my attention on what was actually being said in the room. I think the tweeters made a lot of good observations, but I also thought some of the comments were rather dismissive and disrespectful of the older attendees, who were less media savvy, but very experienced and knowledgeable in other areas, and certainly every bit as passionate about working for change as the younger crowd.
After checking in, I ran out for some coffee and made it back in plenty of time to get seated and somewhat caffeinated before Joe Smith took the floor and introduced keynote speaker Steven A. Smith, a seasoned newspaper man who grew up in Portland and Eugene, and attended U of O and Ohio State (I'm always intrigued by the number of people who seem to move back and forth between these two O states). Everything he said about the industry was in line with what I've been hearing at school and at other conferences: everything's going electronic, there are serious funding problems that no one's figured out how to handle yet, shrinking newsrooms are leading to a decline in the quality and quantity of news being produced, small local papers are doing the best, etc.
Next a panel of media professionals introduced the topics of the breakout groups and then Joe Smith opened the floor up to the roomful of journalists, who had more to say (much of which they had already been tweeting) than I think he anticipated. One of the proposed breakout groups was replaced by an "Unconference" group that planned to tackle a number of the issues that attendees felt were being overlooked.
I decided to go to the OPB group, which was focused on expanding the organization and possibly forming a new non-profit. There were about 15 people who stayed for the duration of the session, and about 10 more who popped in briefly, often just long enough to share their opinions and avoid hearing those of others. It was kind of strange, I thought. I was also surprised by how much hostility developed during the session.
There was certainly a divide, which was apparent the whole day, between those who were more into new media, and more open to new methods, and the more old-school crowd, who seemed not to take Twitter and blogs very seriously, which I think fueled some productive discussion about the role of citizen journalists and how they can be included without dismissing or hurting "real" journalists (or how we can even make such distinctions), and how to be more inclusive of marginalized groups in the media; but there also seemed to be some tension that I had a hard time placing. I suppose when you put that many smart, vocal people in a room you're bound to have some clashes of personality. I certainly came away with a better understanding of the range of opinions on a number of topics, and hope others did, too.
In the end, I think our group came up with some good ideas about how to improve OPB, but there wasn't much discussion about forming a new non-profit, and after our group representative presented to the room, Joe Smith suggested that OPB move ahead with some of the proposed actions, but that we not continue to discuss it as a group.
After all the groups presented, individuals formed more specific proposals for actions, which all of the attendees voted on by way of a complex hand-rasing system. I think new technology could have saved a lot of time and frustration there. I'd certainly jump at the opportunity to use the iclicker I was required to spend upwards of $30 on for my Grammar for Journalists class last year (and have never used since).
Over the course of the afternoon, there was a noticeable decline in the size of the group. I'm not sure how many people left because of other obligations, and how many just felt that nothing productive was going to come from the conference.
Finally, after about eight hours of trying to figure out how such a large group of people with such disparate ideas could take action together to improve the outlook of journalism in Portland, we broke into smaller groups once more to make concrete plans.
I joined a group that plans to create a new non-profit multi-media entity. Ron Buel, one of the conference organizers and founding editor and publisher of Willamette Week (and another UO alum), was appointed discussion leader. I think we may collaborate with some of the other groups. We're planning to meet again in three weeks. Hope this goes somewhere!
Lots of others are blogging about this event. I'll add to this list as I find more:
Thoughts From the Spiral
Carla Axtman on Blue Oregon
360 Convos
Reporting 1 Blog
Civics 21
Still a Newspaper Man
Joe Wilson
Oregon Media Central
Ran Dum Thots
I tweeted from my phone (not one of those new-fangled smart ones) throughout the day, but left my laptop at home. I'm kind of sad that I missed out on reading all the Twitter discussion that went on during the conference (which I did read as soon as I got home), but am also glad that I was able to focus my attention on what was actually being said in the room. I think the tweeters made a lot of good observations, but I also thought some of the comments were rather dismissive and disrespectful of the older attendees, who were less media savvy, but very experienced and knowledgeable in other areas, and certainly every bit as passionate about working for change as the younger crowd.
After checking in, I ran out for some coffee and made it back in plenty of time to get seated and somewhat caffeinated before Joe Smith took the floor and introduced keynote speaker Steven A. Smith, a seasoned newspaper man who grew up in Portland and Eugene, and attended U of O and Ohio State (I'm always intrigued by the number of people who seem to move back and forth between these two O states). Everything he said about the industry was in line with what I've been hearing at school and at other conferences: everything's going electronic, there are serious funding problems that no one's figured out how to handle yet, shrinking newsrooms are leading to a decline in the quality and quantity of news being produced, small local papers are doing the best, etc.
Next a panel of media professionals introduced the topics of the breakout groups and then Joe Smith opened the floor up to the roomful of journalists, who had more to say (much of which they had already been tweeting) than I think he anticipated. One of the proposed breakout groups was replaced by an "Unconference" group that planned to tackle a number of the issues that attendees felt were being overlooked.
I decided to go to the OPB group, which was focused on expanding the organization and possibly forming a new non-profit. There were about 15 people who stayed for the duration of the session, and about 10 more who popped in briefly, often just long enough to share their opinions and avoid hearing those of others. It was kind of strange, I thought. I was also surprised by how much hostility developed during the session.
There was certainly a divide, which was apparent the whole day, between those who were more into new media, and more open to new methods, and the more old-school crowd, who seemed not to take Twitter and blogs very seriously, which I think fueled some productive discussion about the role of citizen journalists and how they can be included without dismissing or hurting "real" journalists (or how we can even make such distinctions), and how to be more inclusive of marginalized groups in the media; but there also seemed to be some tension that I had a hard time placing. I suppose when you put that many smart, vocal people in a room you're bound to have some clashes of personality. I certainly came away with a better understanding of the range of opinions on a number of topics, and hope others did, too.
In the end, I think our group came up with some good ideas about how to improve OPB, but there wasn't much discussion about forming a new non-profit, and after our group representative presented to the room, Joe Smith suggested that OPB move ahead with some of the proposed actions, but that we not continue to discuss it as a group.
After all the groups presented, individuals formed more specific proposals for actions, which all of the attendees voted on by way of a complex hand-rasing system. I think new technology could have saved a lot of time and frustration there. I'd certainly jump at the opportunity to use the iclicker I was required to spend upwards of $30 on for my Grammar for Journalists class last year (and have never used since).
Over the course of the afternoon, there was a noticeable decline in the size of the group. I'm not sure how many people left because of other obligations, and how many just felt that nothing productive was going to come from the conference.
Finally, after about eight hours of trying to figure out how such a large group of people with such disparate ideas could take action together to improve the outlook of journalism in Portland, we broke into smaller groups once more to make concrete plans.
I joined a group that plans to create a new non-profit multi-media entity. Ron Buel, one of the conference organizers and founding editor and publisher of Willamette Week (and another UO alum), was appointed discussion leader. I think we may collaborate with some of the other groups. We're planning to meet again in three weeks. Hope this goes somewhere!
Lots of others are blogging about this event. I'll add to this list as I find more:
Thoughts From the Spiral
Carla Axtman on Blue Oregon
360 Convos
Reporting 1 Blog
Civics 21
Still a Newspaper Man
Joe Wilson
Oregon Media Central
Ran Dum Thots
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
J Skills in the Media Convergence Era
Thanks, WoodysWorldTV, for tweeting this video, in which Alan Murray of the Wall Street Journal discusses finding and building an audience and marketing your work.
These are the same points that many of the panelists made at the Oregon Society of Professional Journalists' Building a Better Journalist conference at U of O last weekend. Many professional journalists today are struggling to make digital media work for them. While tools such as blogs and social media sites can be hugely beneficial to journalists, and are becoming increasingly necessary, they present a substantial challenge.
I feel very fortunate to be starting to get a handle on digital media while I'm in school, rather than trying to learn it all on the job. As an Electronic Media major, I'm learning a lot about broadcast in my classes, but so far, discussion of how to produce media for the web has been peripheral. I spend many hours a week exploring these tools on my own, and while I use many of them regularly, I'm still learning how to use them effectively. It's sometimes difficult to determine what's worth spending time on and what's just a fad or only of real use for socializing with friends.
I first heard about Twitter about a year ago when I attended the OSPJ's 2008 conference here in Eugene. I joined immediately, mostly out of curiosity. It wasn't until recently that I began to use it regularly. When Twitter comes up in conversation, people often scoff, but I'm really impressed with how useful it's becoming for me. In addition to getting news updates from the New York Times, NPR, and various other major outlets, I get a lot of useful information from individuals working in media, which I can't imagine having found elsewhere. It's incredible the breadth of information I can get in a few minutes just by scrolling through recent tweets:links to videos, articles, and blogs; event listings; professional advice; etc.
The downside is that it has taken quite a lot of time for me to get to the point where sites like this are really becoming useful to me, and I still have a lot to learn. Learning to use something like Twitter effectively is akin to learning a new language. In addition to becoming able to communicate very concisely (tweets are limited to 140 characters) there are conventions and tags one must learn to use in order to communicate effectively. For example using "RT" to denote that something is a "retweet" and using "#" to create a "hashtag."
New social media sites crop up all the time, and it can be overwhelming trying to determine in which ones it's worth becoming literate. The newest one I've joined is Cinchcast, which is a lot like Twitter, but allows users to post photos and to record audio directly via their phones. So far users can only post mobile photos using an iPhone application, so people like myself, who don't have iPhones can only upload photos from their computers, but the site's developers are extremely responsive to user feedback, and are working on improving it so that it's more useful. There aren't many people using it yet, and a huge portion of the posts at the moment are "test" posts form new users trying to figure out how the site works. I'm excited about the site's potential, but only time will tell whether it will become as popular and useful as Twitter.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Walter Benjamin, Marshall McLuhan, and Technology
I am at the library (open 24 hours, much to my liking) finishing up a paper on montage in German Expressionist film and Walter Benjamin's essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction for my German Cinema class.
In the piece Benjamin argues that technology redefined art:
"The nineteenth-century dispute as to the artistic value of painting versus photography today seems devious and confused. This does not diminish its importance, however; if anything, it underlines it. The dispute was in fact the symptom of a historical transformation the universal impact of which was not realized by either of the rivals. When the age of mechanical reproduction separated art from its basis in cult, the semblance of its autonomy disappeared forever. The resulting change in the function of art transcended the perspective of the century; for a long time it even escaped that of the twentieth century, which experienced the development of the film.
Earlier much futile thought had been devoted to the question of whether photography is an art. The primary question—whether the very invention of photography had not transformed the entire nature of art—was not raised. Soon the film theoreticians asked the same ill-considered question with regard to the film. But the difficulties which photography caused traditional aesthetics were mere child’s play as compared to those raised by the film."
In the piece Benjamin argues that technology redefined art:
"The nineteenth-century dispute as to the artistic value of painting versus photography today seems devious and confused. This does not diminish its importance, however; if anything, it underlines it. The dispute was in fact the symptom of a historical transformation the universal impact of which was not realized by either of the rivals. When the age of mechanical reproduction separated art from its basis in cult, the semblance of its autonomy disappeared forever. The resulting change in the function of art transcended the perspective of the century; for a long time it even escaped that of the twentieth century, which experienced the development of the film.
Earlier much futile thought had been devoted to the question of whether photography is an art. The primary question—whether the very invention of photography had not transformed the entire nature of art—was not raised. Soon the film theoreticians asked the same ill-considered question with regard to the film. But the difficulties which photography caused traditional aesthetics were mere child’s play as compared to those raised by the film."
Discussing this section in my paper, I couldn't help thinking of a Marshall McLuhan quote that Rick Seifert, one of my Journalism teachers at PCC, often repeated: "the medium is the message."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
