web2.0 – Citizen Reporter

Space For Those Who Don’t Agree

Lisbon, March 2011 Through the numerous jobs I do as both a journalist and an editor to help fund my own work here on this site, I end up editing many documents relating to new media and its significance. Among the terms and theories that are frequently kicked around is the one about how through today’s social media applications and collective spaces on the web, like minded people can find each other and further develop their projects or networks. No doubt, this is happening and will continue to happen; yet while many celebrate this development, I’m left concerned and wondering about the flip side of this coin.

What will a world be like where for the most part like minded people find each other and communicate amongst themselves? Where you unfriend or ignore any person with an opinion that doesn’t match your own. How will future compromises and cooperation occur among people who have very different points of view about how the world works or should work?

In many ways this question has begun to be answered with every passing election in this decade. In Europe for example, increasingly you hear about increase in votes for parties on the fringe or on extreme opposite opinions from each other. The middle ground or voices that express something less pronounced or less strict positions are losing ground (of course in many cases they might also deserve it for a poor track record).

Despite the power of the internet to educate and connect people, and the tools that have made this all possible, the answer to the aforementioned question has not emerged. You can surely follow people on twitter that you agree with just as well as you can follow people you disagree with, but do we really do both? Or do we unfollow the person who’s opinion we can’t stand. After that, we may never have to hear from them and can proceed with communicating with the more pleasant people we tend to agree with.

Of course this is not the same story throughout the internet. There are plenty of people, who disagree on things, listening and communicating with each other. But as systems of social networking become more refined, catering to what you like and who you like, how do we keep the things we don’t like -but might need to live alongside, from being ignored. Are all the great developments for sharing information making sure that NON likeminded people are encouraged (or required!) to keep listening to each other? Perhaps they should, since we do still live on this earth together, and ignoring each other continues to have terrible side effects.

Yearly Whatever

Lots of things happening in my professional life as well as the social life, as it seems all my good friends in Amsterdam are inviting me places lately. And behind all this, preparations have to be made for my upcoming talk at the Chaos Communications Camp which begins this week. I’m taking my talk extremely seriously this time, as I’m going not to represent myself, but rather to talk about the important work of New Orleans bloggers and grassroots net activists.

As I prepare this I notice lots… no.. excessive blog posting throughout the internet about a conference held by a dominant mainstream American blogger. It sounds like a lovely time, yet at the same time.. yet another conference to talk about how revolutionary they the bloggers are. The truth is, as an offshoot of one of the two corporatist political parties of the US, they are anything BUT revolutionary. More like the voluntary pawns of a political game that gradually moved online, yet the talking points remain the same.

This is what I was thinking about, along with all the other endless distractions and talk about nothing on places like facebook or twitter, as I listened to the latest Amsterdam Forum from radio Netherlands. The focus of the podcast was what the internet has done or not done for society, art, and information. Many of the participants spoke at length of the amount of useless conversation and endless new websites for alleged community building that are popping up all over on the internet. They also talk about book publishing and what will happen to that industry, and of course – the media – as one man goes on and on about the important of gatekeepers… which of course, I don’t agree with. (read the text)

What I like best about the program is that it brings up a very important fact — there’s alot going on with the internet today… but much of it isn’t FOR any particular reason. And why should it be? In my opinion, because there are many more important things that the people of the world are in desperate need of that we might be able to help with if we’d only stop using all the power and innovation for such shallow objectives.

In many ways.. just writing this post adds to the pile.

Media Should Not Be Business

Capitalism, at least the version that is commonly practiced in this era that we currently live in, has a long list of terrible drawbacks. The one I was thinking most about this evening, as I cruised the canals of Amsterdam, is the marriage of business and media.

Let us take a step back for a moment. While pure capitalism seems to push for a world where everything is a commodity and everything can be bought and sold. We know, in fact, that many things cannot and SHOULD NOT be for sale. Examples of this include matters of public safety, like the Fire Department. Many centuries ago they experimented with private fire brigades in the US, but of course houses that didn’t pay for service burned down and led to other houses catching fire. Clearly, fire protection was deemed something that cannot be a business.

Let us return to media, a far cry from the world of fires and fire protection. Media is widely operated around the world as a business. While there are numerous public media run from public funds, a majority of the world’s information comes from media companies that are private businesses. Why even in terms of language (english anyway) you hear this cultural norm in the term “the newspaper business”. Yup, when you talk about media, you’re almost always talking about business.

Yet everywhere you look there is evidence of what a terrible and detrimental marriage this is. News reports mixed with advertisements to the point you can’t tell which is which. Media companies buying other media companies and cutting staff and budgets in order to increase profit margins. News programs covering topics that will attract the most amount of people in order to attract the most amount of advertisers, appealing to people’s insecurities, fears, or dreams. Ignoring news that makes people uncomfortable about their lives, their government, or the companies they help fund. Firing or marginalizing reporters that dare to challenge this system, by direct or indirect orders of business managers or sponsors.

Over and over again, now of course, on the internet, we are told that media is a business and that is just how it has to be.

People ask me, “Maybe you could make a living out of your work on the site by having ads or a sponsor”, and I make some excuse about not being sure what to do. The truth is I am very sure it has been and would be a mistake. More than that, I disagree with the global norm, the widely accepted tradition that this is how media works and the world will be fine if this continues. It’s not fine. We are not ok, and one of the most basic reasons is the way our media system functions… the business of reporting the news.

And so I carry on without the sponsors. Without the money that journalists need to survive. Like many of my friends and fellow reporters on the internet, I try to formulate a better way. Or more often, sit here hoping that if I keep doing my work, that new day will finally come when media breaks free from business and finds a better way to exist. One where reporting about people and injustice gets the priority, and funding comes without the need to sell something or compromise the essential principles that make it possible to shed light on what has been left in the dark for much too long.

Pain of Potential

It feels like May, to me, when frisbee season is in full swing and I’m playing three times a week or more and I run and throw for hours without noticing. It also means that new people join the our league here in Amsterdam, and that inevitably means all those questions that I can never answer properly about what I do.

What do I do? “I’m an internet journalist.” “I’m a podcast journalist.” “I’m a freelancer.” “I do a little of everything.” “I’m under-employed.” Or my personal favorite “I drive a red boat around town.” No doubt it has scared away a potential date or two.

And so this evening I’m reading up a bit on the wonderful Portuguese blog written by Antonio Granado about journalism and the internet. Recently he pointed out some facts about the online application known as twitter. If you’ve no idea what twitter is, I can summarize what you’re missing – Potentially great, amazingly useless.

Why so bitter? It is like many things in this life and on these internets, the power to harness creative energy and people through revolutionary communication…. used to broadcast complete nothingness.

Picture it, you go on twitter and you have a small collection of friends, a common thing with all the internet applications these days. And whenever you easily and quickly type in a 2 line message, all your friends can see it in a real time chronological list. NOW, ideally, this could be used for say… a group of journalists… or say gardeners.. writing brief updates about a project, problem, or pressing issue that collectively, the group could certainly benefit from hearing about and responding to it. The same has always been said for how blogging or lots of different online applications could be used.

So I joined twitter many months ago, loaded it up with 20 or so of my favorite videobloggers, podcasters, and those I consider internet activists.. concerned about understanding the world around them. I purposely do not add another 40 to 60 people, most likely some very nice people who I suppose want to hear my little messages, but whose messages I just do not want to spend time reading.

But whether it is on my list, or someone else’s list, most of what is happening is simply garbage. Occasionally I find that even I join in and write some useless garbage like “trying to figure out where the socks get lost in the laundry process.” Just one more in the pile of messages about who is bored. Who is eating. Who is watching TV.

So much potential in the hands of we who somehow don’t take advantage…don’t manage to get passed ourselves and our provincial thoughts or activities. And then we hear about how twitter is growing and how amazing it is and wow what an application.

Amazing indeed. Some guy just announced he’s going to sleep while another one is about to watch the latest Sopranos. Rest easy world, today’s internet user is highly complex and concerned about the problems of this world.