Week 1: Journalism in Crisis
A look at how the Internet has disrupted traditional media and a discussion of several emerging trends.
Intro: The Innovator's Dilemma
"It is very difficult for a company whose cost structure is tailored to compete in high-end markets to be profitable in low-end markets as well. Creating an independent organization, with a cost structure honed to achieve profitability at the low margins characteristic of most disruptive technologies, is the only viable way for established firm to harness this principle."
-- Clayton M. Christensen Innovator's dilemma
I. Fragmentation
II. Search/New trends
III. The sky is falling
1. Journalism by every means necessary
"These days, when someone from a newspaper or a journalism school asks me to join a panel about the future of journalism or address the question of why a newspaper should have blogs, my inner response is a scream: You are slipping into irrelevance! You have an analog product in a digital world! You're economic platform is dying! You must do something! ... (I)n order for newspapers to continue to generate the revenue necessary to fund this breadth and depth of reporting, they must reinvent their economic and editorial models. Otherwise, quality journalism will be limited to those who can pay for it, to those who subscribe to specialty magazines or newsletters. The masses, those most dependent on a government that is continually under the watchdog's eye, will be left with the chaff, the free, understaffed, poorly reported newspapers, the crime-ridden TV news reports and the growing mass of celebrity journalism.
2. Memo to mainstream media: You don't get to blog
"Fact: Most major media players couldn't lose their audience faster if they were chasing them with a stick. And rather than reform and transform, major media - in some kind of manic pratfall - responds by further exposing the public to the very same cast of characters that the audience has already rejected. Staff blogs. Wow."
-- Bob Cauthorn
3. Time for a change: The Associated Press as Napsterized news
"The 21st Century news business needs a peer-to-peer network that lets local operations drive cost out of their non-local news packages, divert resources to local web content creation and operate on a level playing field with bloggers, citizen journalists and internet pure plays."
Second half of class
Post a comment on the Epic 2015 thread of the J415 blog
Assignments for Thursday's lab
1. Send me an e-mail with your e-mail address and preferred password for the blog. Also, post a note in the Introductions thread. Tell us about yourself, your major, what year you are in school and provide links to any blogs/websites that you have done.
2. Choose an RSS aggregator and set it up. This is important, and if you do it right, it will make it much easier for you to keep track of what's happening in the industry, in this class and at Speakeasy and athensI.
Here is a primer on RSS: RSS How To
And here are a few suggestions of RSS readers and the market share each holds, based on the number of feeds subscribed. I use Bloglines and really like it, but My Yahoo also is a great option. Fish around and see what aggregator best suits your needs.
Once you've chosen your aggregator, go to the following sites and add them so you can track them. In parentheses, I've included a suggested category heading if you decide to categorize your feeds (highly recommended).
Bluffton Today (citizen journalism)
Dan Gillmor's blog (citizen journalism)
Lost remote (online journalism)
Editor & Publisher (online journalism)
Online Journalism Review (online journalism)
E-media Tidbits (online journalism)
Speakeasy (athens)
Boingboing (cool stuff)
Bonus points: Search for the keywords "rss Athens ohio" on Google to see what RSS feeds already are out there in your community. Did you know the Athens County Convention and Visitors Bureau offers an RSS feed? Bet you didn't. Wonder who else does? Wonder if this is something that could be incorporated into Speakeasy or athensI? A lot of sites use RSS to include headlines from a variety of sources on their pages. Might be worth trying to figure out how to do this ...