newmedia

The influence of television on the general election – The Guardian

10 May, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

"Such sudden excitements and their equally rapid evaporation are characteristic of the internet era. This is indeed the "last-minute" generation who turn up in their hundreds to vote at the thirteenth hour and find that they can't get a ballot paper.

[…]

Tellingly, Cameron said last week that he wanted to forget the tyranny of 24-hour news bites and concentrate calmly and rationally on the business of government.

Is that going to be possible, particularly when an election, the TV debates and the rest may come our way again as soon as this autumn? If so, a key paradox will be exposed once more. While a mass audience listen to the candidates spar, they then split into a thousand postmodern splinter groups to vote. So remember the classic Riepl's law: innovations in media add to what went before rather than replacing it. We've now got the mass and the micro audience … but we've yet to learn how to maximise them."

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Del.ici.us tags: peterbazalgette election2010 media tvdebates newmedia socialmedia

Obama bemoans ‘diversions’ of iPod, Xbox era – AFP

10 May, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

"You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank all that high on the truth meter"

"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation"

He bemoaned the fact that "some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction," in the clamor of certain blogs and talk radio outlets.

"All of this is not only putting new pressures on you, it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy."

[…]

"We can't stop these changes… but we can adapt to them," […]

"Education… can fortify you, as it did earlier generations, to meet the tests of your own time"

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Del.ici.us tags: barackobama newmedia socialmedia citizenship

‘New media is a vital antidote to national newspapers’ electioneering’ – journalism.co.uk

6 May, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

"But what has not been mentioned in these old vs new media election debates is the necessary counter to national coverage, newspapers in particular, that new media has provided. Yes, tweeters and bloggers may also have political allegiances or speak from a particular political standpoint, but there have been questions asked and arguments and discussion raised online that have helped turn this election into a wider debate of the issues. New media has arguably reminded us of the local issues at stake in this election and provided a more granular picture of the campaigns and the issues at stake for voters. It has also given us tools and information to better understand what and who we are voting for with sites like Tweetminster, The Straight Choice and TheyWorkForYou."

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Del.ici.us tags: election2010 lauraoliver newmedia socialmedia

Old media, new media and the UK election – John Naughton

25 April, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

“What TV did best, in this particular context, was to stage the debate: only a broadcast (few-to-many) medium could do that. But where it struggles is in attempting to add value to that broadcast event. To date, it has fallen back on the old, pre-Internet, staples (studio discussions with bigwigs, spinmeisters and columnists) leavened with a smattering of new tech tools (for example, second-by-second reaction tracking). But, actually, the value added is trivial compared with what’s available on the Web and in social media. And the reason for that is simple: TV is a push medium; and the intellectual bandwidth of push media is inherently very narrow. As Neil Postman observed many years ago (and James Fallows also showed in his lovely book, Breaking the News), you can’t do philosophy with smoke signals."

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Del.ici.us tags: johnnaughton election2010 broadcasting print online journalism newmedia tvdebates