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Persephone MielMedia in Transition

Cambridge, MA 24 April 2009

Media Re:public

Berkman and MacArthur Foundation taking a step back to ask:

“Why hasn’t citizen journalism (participatory media) revolutionized the news and information environment, and hence, democracy?”

Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws…that claim to own speech itself…(that) declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish. -- John Perry Barlow, 1996

You don’t own the eyeballs. You don’t own the press, which is now divided into pro and amateur zones. You don’t control production on the new platform, which isn’t one- way. There’s a new balance of power between you and us. The people formerly known as the audience are simply the public made realer, less fictional, more able, and less predictable. You should welcome that, media people. But whether you do or not we want you to know we’re here. -- Jay Rosen, 2006

Strengthening the public discourse, and strengthening democracy, is indeed the common ground shared by professional journalists, bloggers, wikipedians and others involved in the creation of grassroots media.

-- Rebecca MacKinnon, 2005Blogging, Journalism and Credibility meeting, final report

Professional Volunteer

For-Profit

Non-Profit

Content Creation

Business Model

Traditional Media Participatory Media

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are needed to see this picture.

A typology of media organizations (old and

new)1 Publisher - combines functions of content production reporting, editing, publishing, and distribution/broadcasting. Examples: New York Times, Salon.com, CBS Evening News

2 News Agency - focuses on news-gathering for publication and distribution by others. Examples: Reuters, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Statehouse News Service

A typology of media organizations (old and

new)3 Aggregator - News distributor/publisher that relies on third- party content. Examples: Google News, Yahoo! News

4 Author-centric - Content and usually distribution are controlled by authors rather than institutions. Examples: Instapundit.com, Baristanet, Drudgereport, BoingBoing

5 Audience-driven - Relies primarily on the contributions of the audience for content and/or editorial decisions. Examples: YouTube, iReport, Slashdot

Spot.us

Spot.Us is a nonprofit project to pioneer “community funded reporting.” Through Spot.Us the public can commission investigations with tax deductible donations for important and perhaps overlooked stories. If a news organization buys exclusive rights to the content, donations are reimbursed. Otherwise content is made available through a Creative Commons license.

Spot.us• Traditional journalism skills/values but new

employment model• Editorial structure• Audience contributes what they are best

suited to contribute ($, attention) while gaining new role as commissioning editor

• Platform independent • Clear editorial independence and public

service mission position• Non-profit

Global Voices

Bringing information on developing countries to a global audience via meta-reporting on the conversations happening in the participatory media sphere of the countries.

Global Voices

• Needs and interests of community of authors-audience was core only later worried about reaching broader audience

• Striving for truly democratic, multinational perspective• Authentic voices• Curation, context, cultural and linguistic translation -

the journalism of the future• Non profit

Town Meeting Map (NHPR)

Public radio station website encourages local municipalities to provide information on town meetings, including agenda, budget and other documents. Each town’s information can be found on a map, and can be discussed by public online. Meanwhile, the station’s reporters gain access to information on local government across state, do deeper more comparative stories.

• http://www.nhpr.org/townmeeting/2009

Town Meeting Map (NHPR)

• Government transparency

• Streamline traditional information-gathering• Facilitate both professional, mediated production and amateur self-serve • Multiplatform (web + radio)• Inexpensive (off-the-shelf tools + $400 of developer time)• Non-profit

Final Thoughts

• It’s not about saving, replacing, or recreating the news media we had

• Technology is easy, people are hard• Existing models for participatory networked

reporting, editing and media consumptions are just the beginning

• Multiplatform, multinational perspectives are needed

• Study ABSENCE, not just PRESENCE

Conclusions• Under pressure from falling revenues and the

disruption of their business model, traditional media outlets are reducing and shifting the scope of their original reporting.

• Web-native media entities are not addressing all of the crucial reporting gaps left by traditional media. Current structures and mechanisms do not provide sufficient incentives for them to do so.

• Participation in the online media space is not evenly distributed; some populations and ideas remain underrepresented.

• There are elements of critically important journalism that have not yet found reliable sustainability models in the online media environment.

• Efforts to understand and address these issues are limited by a lack of solid empirical evidence, and must rely instead on incomplete information, anecdotes, and intuition.

Thanks for listening (Извините за внимание)

Media Re:public blog: www.mediarepublic.us

Media Re:public papers:www.mediarepublic.org

Persephone Miel: persephone.miel@gmail.com