The Internet, Free Press, Technology and toward a New World Order?

1. The Internet, Free Press, Technology and toward a New World Order? Dec. 7, 2009

2. ANNOUNCEMENTS • Dec. 10 Final exam review • Read a Granta story you haven’t read for discussion • Online teacher evaluations • Media journals • News of the day—Beatriz Tellez • Final news on Thursday? • Afghanistan Project: next term

3. The Power of the Internet • Distribution of content is driving toward almost free. But has that changed the way information is created around the world? • The cost of creating content hasn’t halved every 18 months (the rule for computer processing power) or has it—with the rise of so-called citizen journalism. People create content for free—but is that a good thing or a bad thing • Right now, do we have too much supply of information and too little demand for good journalism?

4. “On the one hand, information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right places just changes our life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.”—Steven Levy et. Al. • What does this mean for global news and press freedom?

5. TRADITIONAL NON-NET MODELS • In the U.S., newspapers and magazines are (or were) supported through advertising and subscriptions that make up 80 percent of their revenues. • In other countries, developing and developed the media was state supported, but increasingly is moving toward a profit model.

6. EARLY NET JOURNALISM MODELS • No funding model for news websites. They were “shovelware” sites that offered no more than the news that was already in print and broadcast. • In the developing world, the digital divide kept the Internet as a news tool in its infancy until the mid-2000s. • Now that digital divide is being bridged. But to what effect? • Is the Western model of media being overthrown by new models from other countries? • Al-Jazeera • Global Post

7. THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY • In the U.S., Twitter is a tool for entertainment • In Iran, it’s a tool of revolution • In the U.S., cameras in phones are for posting Facebook photos • In Burma, cameras in phones brought us images of Buddhist monks protesting in the streets of Rangoon. • But technology also can be controlled as we have seen in China, Iran, Venezuela. • It also can be used effectively by government leaders. Putin’s Four-Hour Call in Special • Obama’s virtual town halls

8. WORLD NEWS PRISM • Has “Western journalism” really triumphed? • Does your country’s media “do” journalism better than our media? • The impact of media on the cold war? • Some historians postulate that the media had a big hand in the end of the Cold War. Do you think the media can have a hand ending the War on Terror? • Is history really speeded up?

9. WORLD NEWS PRISM • Television diplomacy • Loss of control—both in autocratic countries and in the U.S. and other developed countries. • Revolutions through technology—Facebook as a protest tool • Democracy and new economic models (capitalism) do not necessarily bring about change. Culture is far more important—and that is also true in how media are developed in a country. You cannot overlay a free press on a country that has no history or culture of a free press. Freedom of the press is learned, not innate.

10. CAN NEW FUNDING MODELS FOR JOURNALISM CHANGE THE WAY WE VIEW OUR WORLD? In the U.S. and beyond…

11. CAN NEW MODELS REVERSE… • Global media monopolies • The information age divide in poor countries and between generations. • Declining standards in journalism—why Tiger Woods is more important than Afghanistan • The lack of attention from audiences.

12. TIP JAR • The Tip Jar Model – Many content sites and the famed release of Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” album ask consumers to pay however much they think the content was worth. Some bloggers also subscribe to this “tip jar” method. While there are some people making money, most aren’t. Example: Chris Albritton funded a reporting trip to Iraq to cover the war with $15,000 in donations from his readers

13. NEWS AGGREGATORS • Aggregators like the Huffington Post, Fark.com, Foreign Policy Global News • Websites are far less expensive to create—so the new ‘Net journalism models don’t have the same overhead as the old model. • So they can be “free.” • Content, however, still has to come from somewhere, even as newsrooms are cutting staff…so how do we pay for journalism so that we can still aggregate it • Big news: News Corp’s Murdoch wants to block Google from searching its sites and will only allow Microsoft’s Bing to search (and pay)

14. MORE NEWS ON AGGREGATORS • Fark.com—which aggregates user-generated links—signs a deal with USA Today in which it will sponsor Fark’s Tech aggregation section and share ad revenue • MSNBC buys BNO—a Twitter service that nearly 1.5 million people receive streams of news updates on their mobiles or the Web. (Started by a Dutch teenager)

15. CROWDFUNDING • Crowdfunding Model—like Obama’s campaign or Radiohead…but for journalism Example: Spot.us—created by journalist DigiDave and NYU. The rules: • Anyone can come up with a "Tip" or story idea they'd like to see covered. People can "pledge" money toward that story. • Freelance journalists can sign up to cover those story ideas or pitch their own stories, attaching a cost to writing the story. • Once a story has a journalist attached to it, people can donate money to help fund it (but no one can give more than 20% of the total cost of the story). • When the story has full funding, the journalist writes the story, and a fact-checker is paid 10% of the funding to edit and check it. • Before the story is posted, news organizations have a chance to get exclusive rights to the story by paying the full cost, which is given back to the donors. Otherwise, the story is posted online and any news organization can run the story for free.

16. NON-PROFIT • Non-profit/public service model—taken from the world of public television and public radio Examples: www.propublica.org, www.michiganmessenger.org. Oneworld.net Foundation money to support journalism with the next step being traditional media using that journalism in their publications—either free or paid—to raise awareness levels. Example: $400,000 estimated price tag for a story about Hurricane Katrina in NYTimes

17. NEW RESEARCH…TOWARD A FUTURE MODEL • New research shows that you may actually be willing to pay for news on personal computers and especially on mobile devices • But it has to be “cheap and easy” in the words of Steve Brill, founder of Journalism Online • In the U.S., Boston Consulting Group’s research shows people would pay $3 a month for news especially if it falls into these categories. • Unique, local news • Specialized news • Timely, especially if there were news alert service • Accessible on any device • And news that isn’t available for free anywhere else

18. NEW RESEARCH: DIGITAL YOUTH RESEARCH REPORT • The net is useful. Despite what parents might think, teens' time online is not wasted. It is practice for new social and creative skills. • Motivation. Online media use is either friend-driven ("hanging out") or interest-driven ("geeking out") -- or both. • Safety. Online friendships -- mostly are extensions of real-world friendships. (That is, not with scary unknown people.) • Self-directed learning is peer-to-peer. Status is conferred by expertise, not age. (Adults do not get more respect merely for being adults.) • They know it's public. Teens do understand that their online life is public and creates a permanent record. • Expectations of ubiquity. Internet use permeates teens' days. They expect to be "always on" via desktops, laptops, mobile devices or phones.

19. DIGITAL YOUTH RESEARCH PROJECT • Community is king. Teens live their online lives within communities, not alone. • Remix culture. Teens respond to information and culture by appropriating, sampling and remixing it. They then look to their communities for reaction. • Multimedia rules. Teens expect that information will be delivered by multimedia. They expect self-taught multimedia expertise among each other, including video and audio, graphic design and coding.

20. SO WHAT’S NEXT: WILL CONTENT STAY FREE? • Clay Shirky “Revolutions Get Worse First.” • Demand Studios—starts from the other side—determining how much revenue the multimedia piece will generate (using algorithms on search words and phrases) and then determines whether to create the work. • Maggwire—buy pieces of content from many different magazines along the iTunes model. • FLYP—a new multimedia online “magazine” run by

21. FROM POYNTER’S “WHO WILL PAY FOR THE NEWS?” • Collaborate and partner—Yahoo creates an ad marketplace that brings together publishers with advertisers • Harness experimentation—The Knight News Challenge • Target and customize • Promote the value of news—why should we care anyway? If people care, they may pay? • Get over being “jilted by your audience.” Quote: Mike Orren of Pegasus News said at the event, "Stop thinking about how to regain what was 'lost' and focus on what can be gained. Play offense more than defense. Be opportunistic.“

22. GLOBALLY… • Is the Internet’s natural impulse to “reveal, not conceal?” • But does the almost infinite amount of information cause its own new set of problems? • Too much information and too little time • Too little context • Too little fact-checking • Who do we believe and not believe? • Is Google News Search enough—especially if news organizations begin efforts to keep their news from being searched?

23. IS THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM DEPENDENT ON POLITICAL DEMOCRACIES? Or is the future in the fragmented, dispersed world of technology that knows no boundaries save for the efforts of people to disseminate information?