Two Paths For Newspapers

Robert Frost wrote about two roads that diverged in a yellow wood.  The end of each path was unknown, yet one road appeared to be preferred by more people.  Frost, the poet, chose the one less likely and it made all the difference in life.

Newspapers now face a similar decision.  Do they continue to produce content along a well-traveled path or do they choose a new course?  Certainly, the question evokes opinion on all sides.  Technology, or online presence, appears to be the obvious solution.  After all, aren't we all on the web?  But could the two paths really be a metaphor for the choice made by two different sized newspapers?

Recently, small local newspapers have looked to Congress for help as they debate a move toward non-profit Public Broadcasting-style status.  Larger city papers are exploring online "toll booths" for readers as a method of revenue generation. 

From my view, the two roads appear to be about non-profit and profit construction.  Which is the one less traveled?

Life Beyond The Social Network

Are we too tired to use social networks?

Online sociability fatigue is growing among users of Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo and other social networks. Perhaps it is overuse, or a desire to maintain privacy lost in an ocean of peering, driving a new movement away from 24/7 access.

A recent Pew study found that 7 percent of social network users are feeling conflicted about staying in constant contact via the new electronic communities. This group is afraid of missing important communication, yet so exhausted by the attention, and time, required to maintain social network presence. Maybe they wish for an organic life beyond a digital Second Life or Linked-In.

Maybe too much of a good thing is too tiring.

Engaging The Engaged

Daily lectures about media and mass communication have me pondering the role of future media professionals.  As we delve through the history of each medium, I observe a keen interest held by the students for the stories that shaped our media past.  They are engaged in the total concerns--historical, political, economic, cultural, technical--which serve as the foundations of our business.  Their questions are sharp, concise and cogent.  Clearly, this is a generation enveloped within media, but not frightened by it.

I am so hopeful for the mass communication and media future because of these clear-minded students.  Insightful minds who bring laptops to class and who search the web while hearing a new media term or viewing a new concept within a PowerPoint.  They are engaged researchers already at this stage of their academic careers.

Every professor questions the methodology of her or his own teaching.  This illustration points to the very root of pedagogy; however, it is the engaged mind of the learner that is the summation of education.

Are We Media Literate? Part Two

Are we, as a society, media literate? Certainly, we have embraced media technology and mastered it. But do we know the power and meaning of embedded messages and images within media? Perhaps we need some method or learning path to enable our profiency in this new literacy form.
Marshall McLuhan, noted media analyst and scholar, once wrote that "the medium is the message" and our interpretation of that message, or content,was critical to understanding our mass culture.

The effect of mass media on American culture is as powerful as cave drawings were to tribal societies of prehistory. Both forms told stories and relayed important cultural impressions upon the public. Both forms compelled viewers to understand, in a literate way, icons and images. Only through the intellectual appreciation of a medium (eg, cave drawing, photography, music or television)can a society be fully literate.

In essence, our focus on learning and decoding mediated messages enables social literacy.

Are We Media Literate? Part One

One's language is learned at a very early age. To communicate with family, friends and community folk, a person needs to master both the oral and written grammar of that language. This concept is traditional literacy, which is the entry point to success in school, in work and in life.

But is there another literacy to master? Since Gutenberg's mass production of printed material began, the rise of messages within a medium perplexed the public. What did the author mean by this word or this sentence? Questions such as this one abounded for readers and eventually for audiences. Today, many people get their information via complex combinations of text, images and sound. To make sense of this vast media environment, we need to master new essential literacy skills. These skills, called MEDIA LITERACY, are based on the ability to access, analyse, evaluate and create media messages.