Presentation, meeting 2, final version, nj, 3 mar2011

Meeting 2Seminar: New Media and Society

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social SciencesSeminar: New Media and Society

3 March 2011

Nicholas W. JankowskiAdjunct Professor, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Visiting Fellow, e-Humanities Group KNAWAmsterdam, the Netherlands

[email protected] 3 March 2011 1Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2

Opening, introduction

• Welcome– Appreciation for blog posts, assignments

• Session today– Pre-recorded presentation: an experiment

• slides available on course website

• duration: ca. 30 min.

• will announce slide change

– Synchronous text-based discussion: equally experimental• Forums on course website

• Announcements– Meeting 3 materials

• available Friday• Assignments 2b & 2c on website

– Jankowski visit to Ljubljana: 31 Mar – 1 Apr

3 March 2011 2Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2

Agenda Thursday, 3 March (12.00-14.00)(starting time: 12.15 sharp)

1. Presentation1. What are (new) (digital) media?

2. Readings: What’s new about new media? (NM&S essays)

3. Back-stepping: what is (social) theory; relation to new media?

4. Following in footsteps of McQuail

5. Beyond McQuail

6. Closing: winding down

1. [Panorama of seminar students (survey, blog posts)]2. Meeting 3 information3. Assignment

1. Assignment on Readings2. Blog posts3. Seminar paper: first ideas

4. [Anecdote]

2. Online discussions on course Web site

3 March 2011 3Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 4

What are (new) (digital) media?

3 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 5

What are (new) (digital) media?(blog)

3 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 6

What are (new) (digital) media?

• Why parentheses?• alternative terms (a few of the many):

– ICTs, NCTs, telematics, CMC, Internet, social media, Web, Web 2.0

• Problems with:• ‘new’• ‘digital’• ‘media’

• Initial formulation / definition

3 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 7

Observations: Lievrouw & Livingstone

Three elements within social context– artefacts & devices– activities, practices, uses– social arrangements / organizations

3 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 8

Terry Flew’s formulation

“The new media can also be thought of as digital media.”

“Digital media encompasses forms of media content that combine and integrate data, text, siound, and images...; stored in digital formats; increasingly distributed through networks....”

3 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 9

Convergence illustratedTrevor Barr: newssmedia.com (2000: 25)

3 March 2011

Readings: What’s new about new media? (Assignment 1b)

NM&S maiden issue, essays• What are the main points / arguments of each author?• In what ways can (some of) these points be compared between the

authors?• What theoretical perspectives and/or concepts do the authors present and

why?• What recommendations do the authors make for (empirical) research?• What topics do the authors not address that have since become

significant?

3 March 2011 10Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2

Panorama of Perspectives: Theories, Concepts, Models

Roger Silverstone (1): What’s new about new media?

‘To ask the question ‘what is new about new media?’ is, of course, to ask aquestion about the relationship between continuity and change; a questionthat requires an investigation into the complexities of innovation as both atechnological and a social process. But it is a question which also requires aninterrogation of some fundamental presuppositions in social science as wellas a confrontation with some of its enduring paradoxes. In this sense wehave to begin our answer with old theory and with familiar but necessarypreoccupations. We have to enquire into the matter of determination, and ofthe status of ‘the technological’ as a category.’

3 March 2011 11Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2

Roger Silverstone (2)

‘Indeed our preoccupation with the necessary interweaving of technology

and capital has arguably blinded us to the significance of investment in

human capital, to the realization that technology is as much if not more

about skills and competence, literacy and access, as it is about investment

and interfaces.’

3 March 2011 Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 12

Ronald RiceArtifacts and paradoxes in new media

‘What are some of the ways that new media differ from traditional media (including face-to-face) in their configurations of constraints and processes available to those who wish to communicate? And what are some conceptual challenges associated with those configurations?

‘New media are (currently) new to the extent that they combine (1) computing…(2) telecommunication Networks…(3) digitization of content….’

3 March 2011 Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 13

John Pavlik (1)New media and news: implications for the future of journalism

This article examines the impact of new media, defined as those digital media emerging from the convergence of computing, telecommunications and traditional media, on four areas of journalism. First, how do new media affect the way journalists do their work? Second, how are new media transforming news content? Third, how are news media influencing the structure of news organizations and the new industry in general? And, fourth, how are new media affecting the relationships between journalism and its various publics….

3 March 2011 Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 14

John Pavlik (2)New media and news: implications for the future of journalism

‘The relationship between the audience and news is in the midst of aparadigm shift and what shape it will ultimately take is difficult to say. Onething is certain: tomorrow’s audience will have access to much more newsand information than any previous generation. Whether it will be highquality news and information will depend not only on developments in newmedia, but how news organizations adapt and apply these new tools.’

3 March 2011 Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 15

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 16

Comments from AssignmentsWhat topics do the authors not address that have since become significant?

Contributions from: Torben Jakobsen, Nika Kramžar, Tamara Žgajnar, Marja Bajželj, Barbara Drnovšek

Torben Jakobsen:

I think that all of these essays miss a great point about new media. They are all talking about a revolution in the political communication. But I think they forget the problem of selfselection. Indeed I has great possibilities but one disadvantage, as I see it, is that people are going to read news from sources with who they agree with. In this case you will not get a proper democratic debate, but only a debate between liberals and debate among socialist.

3 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 17

Comments from AssignmentsWhat topics do the authors not address that have since become significant?

Nika Kramžar:

If I summarize the recommendations that the authors make for research in their essays, I think that we get some very useful general guidelines for future theoretical and empirical research of the new media. Rice for example suggests that in order to better understand new media; we must also better understand traditional communication forms and reveal their artifactual nature. Flichy warns us from focusing too much on technological properties of the media and emphasizes the mutual workings of different social, cultural and technological factors. And finally Roberts wants us to consider wider social relations, which have a strong influence on the new technologies and their uses.

3 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 18

Comments from AssignmentsWhat topics do the authors not address that have since become significant?

Tamara Žgajnar:

All issues addressed by the three authors I read are still relevant today. The issues that might be significant nowadays but are not addressed by the authors are the question of regulation of the Internet and in this regard new media, and the threats that usage of new media is posing for their users.

3 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 19

Comments from AssignmentsWhat topics do the authors not address that have since become significant?

Marja Bajželj:

I think that today, if we speak about politics and the use of media, we can not look away from ongoing events in Lybia. The thing that the oppression did as a part of their attack on public is that they disconnected new media (internet blackouts, phones not working etc.). A global campaign network that works mainly with the help of Internet called Avaaz made an request for donation in order to provide "blackout-proof" equipent for the protests (with secure satellite modems and phones, tiny video cameras...) to enable activists to broadcast live video feeds and ensure the oxygen of international attention fuels (www.avazz.org). I find this as a very illustrative example of how important the spread of information is in order to achieve political changes.

3 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 20

Comments from AssignmentsWhat topics do the authors not address that have since become significant?

Barbara Drnovšek:

Nevertheless his article is important as it illustrates the fact that the new in new technologies is in fact incredibly dependent on the person using them, which means that despite initially different approaches all three authors managed to illustrate the same conclusion which is that the diversity of users and media make it impossible for us to give a simple black and white answer to the question: what is new in new media.

3 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 21

Back-stepping: What is (social) theory; what is relation to new media?

• Introductory note: • eclectic quality: theory of new media; • diverse, usually ground in discipline of theoretician/author• pluralistic character

– Variety of meanings of theory• Everyday parlance: ‘I have a theory [idea, notion, clarification]’

• Social sciences: – scope: grand, middle-range, micro– Emphasis on:

» hypothesis testing (deductive approach)» model / theory construction; (inductive approach)

– Grounded theory – Theory & exploratory studies; descriptive studies

3 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 22

Following in the Footsteps of McQuail….

PreliminariesChapter 6: New media – new theory?

What’s new about new media?digitalizationconvergence

3 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 233 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 243 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 253 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 263 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 273 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 28

Concluding observations (from long ago)

3 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 29

Concluding observations (equally long ago)

Additions– Personalization– Multiplicity– (social / political) action

3 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 30

Concluding questions

• What theoretical perspectives prominent in the study of traditional and ‘old’ media provide guidance to exploration of new media? Which theories for which new media under which circumstances?

• What modifications of classical theoretical concepts have taken place; what new concepts have emerged during the study of new media?

• What are the dominant theoretical perspectives and theoriticians; what are the central concepts?

3 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 31

Closing: winding down

1. [Panorama of participants in seminar (survey, blog posts)]2. Meeting 3: Historical perspectives

1. presentation & reading assignment: TOC» Reading assignment available Friday, 5 March

2. Discussion session for non-Slovene students3. supplementary resources: folder ‘General Materials’

3. Assignment 2– Assignment 2a: essay related to readings– Assignment 2b: blog posts: discoveries & reflections– Assignment 2c: initial ideas for seminar paper

4. [Anecdote]

3 March 2011

Ljubljana 2011: Meeting 2 32

Discussion forums on course Web site

• Instructions see memo available on website

• Forum 1: New Media does **not** need new theory!

• Forum 2: New media do **not** contribute to social change!

• Forum 3: Journalism is **not** well served by ‘citizen journalists’ and other forms of amateur newsgathering.

• Forum 4: Open podium

3 March 2011