gatewatching

For those of our readers following the US Presidential campaign and wanting to look beyond mainstream coverage, Henry Jenkins has a nice overview of a few citizen journalism projects which aim to provide alternative perspectives on the election race.

It’s nice to see the emphasis on first-hand reporting here (which was also a key aspect of our Australian citizen journalism projects, of course) - this works against the perception that citizen journalism is mainly the domain of “armchair journalists” (as Dennis Shanahan would have it), or simply acts as a parasite feeding on mainstream journalism content (as Jürgen Habermas appears to believe).

Also interesting is the cautious support from mainstream media organisations for such projects (in the cases Henry lists, this includes MTV and the Christian Science Monitor, for example). Next week, I’m presenting a paper at the CCi conference in Brisbane on ways for journalism to move beyond the pro-am (industry/citizen) schism, so these examples are very timely.

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citizen journalism citizen journalism, conferences, elections, journalism

Thanks to a heads-up from Tim at Tree of Knowledge, I found out about this conference, the Personal democracy Forum, being held in New York City this month. Looks like they’ll be discussing some issues that have preoccupied us here at Gatewatching - the influence of new technologies on political campaigning and debate.

The debate in this area doesn’t just happen on Gatewatching The conference’s tagline is “technology is changing politics”, but Charlie Beckett (who heads up the LSE’s Polis Centre where Tim is studying) has posed the following tough questions that he’d like the conference to answer:

1. Tell me in concrete terms what the new technology has allowed you to do that is significantly different in political terms from before? Not just being faster, more connected, more responsive. Tell me what difference it has made, if any, in policy outcomes and the distribution of power?

2. Is this just an American thing? Is it because US politics was so sterile, so locked up by lobbyists and big money and ideological stasis? or can new technology unleash new democratic forces in other countries?

I’d add another - could you make a realistic comparison of the current impacts of online campaigning methods and traditional broadcast media? One of the big speakers at the conference, Clay Shirky, has said some pretty silly things lately about the place of television in our culture - I would hope that the conference would proceed with a recognition that broadcast media are still the principal information source for most voters. That’s not being cynical, just conceding that there is a long way to go, and lots of work to do, in making online engagement more generally available and effective.

Sadly I won’t be able to go - I’ll be preparing for something new (more on that later), but Tim says he’ll be liveblogging the conference (presumably over at TOK), so that’s something to look forward to.

USA Charlie Beckett, Clay Shirky, conferences, democracy, e-democracy, elections, Tree of Knowledge, USA

One of the biggest annual events in our disciplinary area is the International Communications Association conference.

Our colleague Terry Flew is there, and judging by his activity on his blog over the last few days, he’s going to be filling us in on what we’re missing. He’s already railed against the fast and loose use of “neoliberalism” as a non-specific term of abuse, so it may be that this record of the conference will not be mere reportage.

I’ll be looking in regularly, and so should you if, like me, you enjoy vicariously attending gigantic academic conferences.

Uncategorized academic, conferences, Terry Flew

I got somethin’ in New Matilda today reporting on my recent travels to conferences at home and abroad. There’s a cross-post over the fold, but you should go there instead and read the other stuff on the site while you’re at it.

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UK, public sphere academic, conferences, e-democracy, journalism, Margaret Simons, MEAA, newspapers, public sphere, quality, research, Roy Greenslade, Steven Coleman, sustainability, UK