Jay Rosen inspires Australian journalism students
Journalism students at work
Jay Rosen, a softly spoken journalism professor from NYU set the scene for his Melbourne media lecture with a flashback to the 1976 film ‘Network.’ The clip showed a crazed anchor man hijacking the airwaves and instructing his television audience to angrily shout out their windows and re-connect with the world. Why were we watching this bizarre film, I pondered as the lights dimmed and the YouTube clip rolled? The answer became clear when Rosen explained that in the past, mass media was previously in the hands of major companies. They dictated the one-way relationship between the viewer and the dominant television network. It’s hard to believe but this limited interaction often blinded the audience from the fact that others were watching television too, which explains the mad window shouting scene from the movie.
Now that media tools have been distributed to the wider population, what happens to professional journalists? Those who have spent a lifetime developing their craft, seeking respect from the public, working to earn credibility and authority. When anyone can jump online, bang out a blog and claim to be a writer or content producer, it’s obvious that the media landscape has drastically changed from what was once a hypodermic needle system where mass media messages were injected into the family’s lounge room.
Rosen referred to the public as “people formerly known as the audience.” A thoughtful observation. He did a quick survey of the media students in the room querying who has a blog, domain name or Facebook account. No surprises that everyone had at least one, if not multiple creative media spaces on which they publish prose, photographs and musings. Many of these users are journalism students and therefore quite skilled in writing online content, a strength that some major media corporations lack.
I work for a couple of media companies. One knows how to use Twitter and produce online material a lot better than the other. Visit my profile page and no doubt you can guess which is which! It seems one of my workplaces is not so willing to embrace the people formerly known as the audience, stuck in the ‘Network’ mentality and assuming they will always have control over the content. For those playing the ‘Writing and Editing for Digital Media’ game at home, Chris Amico quoted in the 1st reading of this week makes a vital point that “the more we get out of this mindset that we are the sole producers of useful content, the better off we’ll be in the long run.” Food for thought for all.
Sources: Ryan Sholin, “Why we link: a brief rundown of the reasons your news organisation needs to tie the Web together,” Publishing 2.0, June 2009
Jay Rosen Journalism lecture, Walkley Foundation, Tuesday 17 August 2010, Melbourne, Australia
I felt the same way and was slightly bemused by the Network video clip – but I agree that Rosen used it effectively as a comparison between the audience/media relationship in the 70s and the current day. No more yelling out windows; now we just tweet in capital letters.
Hey Mike, great comparison to Twitter. Wish I’d thought of that!
I’ve largely agreed with Rosen in the past, but I’m not sure about the Network analogy (triply unsure because I haven’t seen Network and I didn’t attend Rosen’s lecture, so take what I say with the understanding that I may be completely misrepresenting Rosen). It’s simply untrue that broadcast media “blinded the audience from the fact that others were [experiencing it] too”. In fact, broadcast media created a shared culture. Think “Where were you when you heard about JKF?” Think discussing Seinfeld around the watercooler. Think OJ. Think September 11. Etc. You’ll find a thousand music articles bemoaning the fact that the internet has destroyed that shared experience, so (they say) we’ll never have another Madonna or Michael Jackson.
The point about media interaction with the audience is well taken, but then there are also many well-documented instances of such interaction taking place pre-internet (in science fiction publishing, in comics, in cult television…).
Thanks for the link to the clip and the informative article. I didn’t get along myself but I can see the relationship between the original net being sort of totalatarian and in the hands of mass media companies and Web2.0 being a more interactive platform.
But what do you think will happen to professional journalists and writers now that the publishing landscape has changed through the internet?
I think professional journalists need to make use of audience interaction and the potential content they can offer via online media. Eg. The Guardian asked it’s readers to trawl through pages of documents about corrupt UK Ministers for their investigative story on public money being used for private purposes. Rosen gave a great example of what not to do. The political editor from The Australian newspaper basically told a Twitter follower to rack off when he corrected the newspaper on an error. I also recently learned my workplace has decided to de-activate their Twitter account, probably because they didn’t know how to use it. This is a shame because I wanted to offer some insights that I’ve learned in this subject.
I would say that professional journalists still play important roles in the media and the effect of blogs and social networking tools are overstated at best.
Think about it – people may hear about news via Twitter or Facebook, but I bet the majority of people still go to traditional news outlets to read it for themselves. I know I do. I don’t see how this is any different to people decades ago either; word would spread about an event and sure enough, people would be listening to the radio or TV to see it for themselves and find out more. This isn’t any different now, except the mediums have changed: people are spreading the word over Twitter or SMS, and people are turning to news websites for more information.
So, in that regard, professional journalists are still valuable members of the media landscape and serve a place, as they always will. People cannot rely on citizen journalism or blogs as their main source of news.
I would highly recommend Network, although I haven’t seen it in quite a while. I think that even though the technology has changed, the film would still have resonance today- perhaps that’s what the Australian public were doing with the recent election result- metaphorically shouting “I’ve had enough & I’m not going to take it any more!”
Tanya
[...] one of Jay Rosen’s recent talks on the people formerly known as the audience, there were some comments on the movie Network (1976) over on Stephaniii’s blog. I felt like an unequal contributor in this discussion because [...]
Everyone should watch Network | DG for Digital Archives said this on September 9, 2010 at 5:18 am |