Journalism as Art

Biserka Anderson, PhD Journalism

HaSS Graduate School Seminar

3 June 2014, University of Strathclyde

JOURNALISM AS ART

IS THIS JOURNALISM?

OR THIS?

…OR THIS?

ZOMG! HERE COME THE ROBOTS!

IS THIS THE RIGHT QUESTION?Cultural changes in newsrooms needed:

”…increased openness to partnerships; increased reliance on publicly available data; increased use of individuals, crowds and machines to produce raw material; even increased reliance on machines to produce some of the output.”

(Post-Industrial Journalism report)

A BIT OF THEORYMedia convergence:

”…shifts within the industrial, cultural, and social paradigms that encourage the consumer to seek out new information”.

(Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture)

Media: "devices, activities and social arrangements”

(Mark Deuze)

JOURNALISM TRENDS“Not gut instinct or data: both.Not the phone or Twitter: both.Not neutral journalists or politicised journalists: both.Not original reporting or verification.journalists or bloggers,journalists or activists,journalists or readers.The future of journalism, with humility, is all of the above.”

The Rise of the Reader (Katharine Viner, Guardian editor)

THE PEOPLE FORMERLY KNOWN AS “THE AUDIENCE”

“…no longer merely spectators” (Kate Nash, New Documentary Ecologies)

FIRESTORM, GUARDIAN AUSTRALIA

FIRESTORM – THE MAKING”OK. We've got a film and a book here.”

Rationale:• To tell an emotive story with the depth of journalism, giving it the editorial values

of the Guardian

• To add rich sensory and immersive elements of multimedia to augment the user experience

“The methods of storytelling and the aesthetics are changing, but not the values. Opinion and analysis is now more valuable than news reporting.”

(Francesca Panetta, Guardian)

SNOW FALL, NEW YORK TIMES

NEW ENGAGEMENT EXPERIENCES: INTERACTIVITY

Four dimensions of interactivity:

• Technological (affordances)

• Relational (reciprocity)

• Experiential (how participants perceive the experience)

• Discursive

“The structure of interactivity has the potential to be rhetorical; in effect an argument is made because of the way in which possible user actions are structured.”

(Kate Nash)

NEW ENGAGEMENT EXPERIENCES: IMMERSION / PLAY

ICEFAIL: PARODY OR PASTICHE?

ICEFAIL: PARODY OR PASTICHE?

JOURNALISM’S AVANT-GARDE?

“Firestorm and Snow Fall are unicorns – extreme examples at the far end of the spectrum of what journalists can do.”

(Mathew Ingram, GigaOm)

JOURNALISM – ART CONVERGENCE?

“Hybridity of cultural forms and discourses” simulated and represented by digital code – evident in the content, structure and language of interactive features

”The boundaries of art and all other media are blurring.”

(Andrew Dewdney and Peter Ride)

WEB-NATIVE STORYTELLING: TOWARDS A NEW GENRE?

Characteristics of the i-doc:

• Fluid, experimental, multi-dimensional

• Appropriating existing media languages

• Audiences construct meaning but meaning is also encoded

• In constant R&D mode; “failure is cool” attitude

• Reluctance to put it in a box

APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY

WHAT IS JOURNALISM?

Thank you!