This election seems to have been one of the biggest anticlimax’s in history. The nation remains unsure who will govern for the next three years, and the fate lies with the four independents currently being courted by the major political parties. I can’t decide what a hung parliament stands for in terms of the democratic process. On this occasion, I think perhaps it highlights the similarities in approach taken by both the ALP and the Liberal/Nationals during the campaign process. The commentators seem to agree that this was a very scripted campaign, focussed primarily on ‘not screwing up’ rather than taking any bold risks on contentious issues. There was a very high informal vote count, dubbed by The Age as the ‘Latham effect’; for example, in the electorate of Blaxland 14.25% of all votes cast were informal, highlighting a sense of apathy and disdain amongst voters.
I was most surprised by the fairly bi-partisan approach to the issue of asylum seekers, and was disappointed that neither major party could offer a more empathetic approach to the subject. It seems clear that the campaigns were based primarily on fear tactics and smear tactics.
Crikey declared the ABC a ratings winner during the campaign. I think with such a negative campaign, shows like Gruen Nation and Yes we Canberra offered voters a welcome light-heartedness that was necessary to retain people’s interest. Interestingly, the Yes we Canberra ‘warm-up act’ for Lateline saw an increase in Lateline viewers during the election coverage.
I am still looking forward to finding out who will take office, but a week has gone by since the ‘non-result’ and I find that I haven’t really been giving it much thought. I wonder if I will feel more inspired when an outcome is actually reached?
I attended the Jay Rosen talk for the Walkley Foundation on Tuesday 17th August. This post is a brief summary and discussion of some of the points that were raised during the talk that I felt were of particular interest. As a brief introduction, Rosen is the author of the blog PressThink and is a professor of journalism at New York University (read more about Jay Rosen here).
Rosen opened with a reference to a scene from the 1976 movie Network in which a broadcaster engages with his audience by encouraging them to stick their heads out of the window and yell a mantra “I’m mad as hell, and I won’t take it anymore…” (see YouTube clip below).
This is compared to the current state of the mass media, in which viewers feel more engaged and connected with content and there is constant interaction between interested parties.Where there used to be an audience of readers, listeners & consumers, now we have an audience that is empowered to distribute and edit news through blogs, podcasting, email, YouTube and other social media.
On his blog, Rosen writes aboutThe Citizens Agenda in Campaign Coverage, which looks at the concept of engaging audiences more closely in defining the types of questions that they want answered by their politicians during campaign coverage. The post looks at the development of a “Citizens Agenda”, which Rosen argues should form the basis of serious discussion between politicians, journalists and key stakeholders during the course of the campaign.
The two main themes of the talk that I found particularly interesting were the concept of “Crowd Sourcing” and “Citizen Journalism”. Crowd sourcing is essentially outsourcing labour to a large group or community by means of an open call. Rosen gave two examples of crowd sourcing. The first, by the blog TPMMuckraker, who used their audience to help trawl through 3,000 pages of emails in search of information relating to the US housing crash. The second example given was Guardian.co.uk, who used crowd sourcing to scan through thousands of pages of documents relating to the expenditure of Member’s of Parliament during the British MP’s expenses scandal. In both examples, the public’s enthusiasm for the story of the day was channeled by journalists to assist in researching and disseminating the news with a speed that would have not otherwise been possible. This also no doubt helped readers to feel more engaged in the news-making and reporting process.
Citizen Journalism is the concept of members of the public playing an active role in the creation and dissemination of news and information. It is defined by Rosen in the video below.
Individuals are now empowered to set themselves up as content creators and sharers through a wide range of new digital media. In his talk, Rosen discussed the changing media landscape, pointing to the incorporation of blogs with traditional media sources and the ‘unbundling’ of the news as more people turn to the internet for content. He gave the example of Spot.Us who funded their story on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (and other stories) by soliciting donations from interested readers.
When you look at these examples, this new age of journalism seems to represent a kind of mass media utopia in which people from all angles are encouraged to participate and share knowledge (and sometimes wealth) – and in which most content is available to us free online 24/7. Rosen argues that there are positive and negatives to this new age of journalism (i.e. it makes open source journalism possible, but provides an outlet for terrorist organisations to plan and communicate). I found the talk very interesting and it gave me some new insights into the evolution of journalism and the mass media over the past few decades.
Following on from my previous post about politicians using social media to interact with voters, I would like to talk about two interesting aspects of digital media: a) how it encourages interaction between individuals that was previously unavailable in such a widespread way; and b) the flow on affects this has in terms of privacy, accountability and scrutiny – i.e. not only are people expected to communicate 24/7, but the messages that they send are more closely scrutinized. Take for example David Barker, the Liberal candidate in the seat of Chifly, who made racially vilifying comments on his Facebook page and was promptly dismissed (and rightly so) by the Liberal party. Not to mention the numerous instances of employees losing their jobs over casual remarks made on their Facebook pages that they doubtfully expected their bosses to discover.
The ABC has incorporated a Twitter live feed into its Q&A program, and while I can see how this helps the audience at home feel more as though they are part of the debate, I think that it cheapens the discussion because many of the ‘tweets’ are pretty meaningless – for example, “Imagining Bronwyn Bishop and John Howard doing it” commented by one viewer during the Monday 9th August program.
It’s not just politicians that are carefully managing their public profiles online. A recent article in The Sydney Morning Herald found that “Nearly 25 per cent of Gen Y guys said they actively manage their cyber profiles to project their ‘best self’ compared to 14 per cent of their female counterparts”. In a similar vein, this article profiles individuals who are juggling concerns over privacy online, whilst also attempting to be active participants through blogging and social media. It highlights how the potential to reach a large audience through online networks can be exciting and daunting at the same time.
The new age of online profiles, networking, dating, gaming, shopping etc. encourages participation and interaction across networks and between individuals. These WordPress blogs are a great example of the relative ease with which individuals can self-publish and reach an audience. I like that people can choose how, when, why and with who they interact online and will be interested to see what the future holds for digital and social media.
Music is now easily and readily available on the internet, allowing users unprecedented and instant access to music from around the world. Cheaper internet access and vastly improved speeds for downloading and streaming content have made access to music more convenient and easier than ever. The record industry however is suffering, with rapidly declining CD sales as more and more consumers turn to the internet to access music and entertainment.
Music streaming sites allow users to search a catalogue and create and edit playlists to listen online. Apple allows users to purchase content through the iTunes store, and sites like Pirate Bay and uTorrent encourage file sharing between individuals. Meanwhile, radio stations are offering online streaming and podcasts, and new social music services such as Rdio, profiled in this article on digital media wire, offer access to a large volume of tracks on a subscription basis and allow users to follow their friends and discover new music.
With the advent of file sharing, there has been a huge increase in illegal downloads which the music industry has had little success in extinguishing. I think that record labels should aim for increased access to their catalogues online, at a pay per track or per album rate, that allows listeners to ethically download tracks. Often the barrier to purchasing CD’s either online or from record stores is ease of access, and I believe that many consumers would happily pay (at a reasonable price) for simple, quick and instant access to music online. In a study on why consumers turn to the internet for illegal downloads, news.com.au concluded that convenience was as much of a motivating factor as money for people who downloaded content illegally. Furthermore, the study, which involved 7324 participants (all who had downloaded material illegally in the past 12 months), showed that more than two-thirds of the respondents would be willing to pay for the same legal service if it were available.
The problem for the music industry has been its unwillingness to embrace change in the new age of internet consumerism. If they were to move towards a model where consumers could stream, download and share content online, record labels could be leading the way in engaging directly with their customers online, rather than focusing upon pursuing legal action against individuals who illegally access content. Record labels could win over consumers by allowing greater ease of access to content and encouraging consumers to engage in ethical sharing of content, and thereby undercutting the pirate music market.
The industry needs to evolve in order to ensure that a wide range of quality content and a stimulating music culture remains available for future generations.
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