Is there another golden age of journalism yet to come?

As journalism’s death knell rings far and wide, it is difficult to tune into voices defending the craft. Nevertheless, on the pages of Charlie Beckett`s Supermedia. Saving Journalism so it can save the World, I stumbled upon a resounding statement of affirmation: “This is the most wonderful time to be a journalist.”

Such an assertion made me feel proud of what I have grown to be, but also encouraged me to keep researching one of today’s most practiced types of journalism: Networked Journalism.

True, journalism is facing a crisis. Newspaper circulation is declining; advertising revenue is down; jobs are being slashed. New business models are sought.

But in the middle of this cacophony, is there a place for a new kind of journalism? Is it still reasonable to talk about the future of journalism? I believe so.

Change and media
Some of the most creative and positive thinking may arise from crisis periods. The media crisis has caused a fissure in the existing journalistic order; there is space for new ways of doing and presenting journalistic work.

The history of journalism is a history of change. In the middle of the 19th century, newspapers became synonymous with all the changes happening in industrialising societies. That moment was known as the golden age of journalism, the time when news information started to circulate on a mass scale.

The conditions allowing the proliferation of mass media were very much connected with the technological improvements taking place at the time: cheaper paper, a higher percentage of advertising, a faster rotary press and, last but not least, a growing number of consumers needing to be informed about the rapid transformation of their society.

We are witnessing a very similar process with so-called Networked Journalism, which has increasingly thrived and is still looking for its own place among the established mass media platforms.

Creating interconnected nodes
Spanish professor Manuel Castells defines a network as “a set of interconnected nodes. It may have a hierarchy, but it has no centre. Relationships between nodes are asymmetrical, but they are all necessary for the functioning of the network.” This from his work, Information Technologies, Globalization and Social Development.

Humans and networks have always co-existed. Today they have become the integral tool for organising the way we work and produce. Just as expected, the contemporary journalistic profession has also adopted this model of function and organisation.

As in the 19th century, technology has allowed these modern sources of information to be useful. But in contrast with the journalism printed on the pages of yesteryears, today’s journalists are negatively perceived as gatekeepers, who judge which stories are appropriate to be published, which sources are trustworthy and so on.

Journalists as curators
Networked Journalism calls for journalists to be the facilitators of information. In most cases, though, reporters and editors cannot monitor what does and does not reach the public sphere. The boundaries of what is or is not noticeable or newsworthy are no longer set by journalists.

Having in mind the traditional and unequivocal principles of truth and accuracy, Networked Journalism aims to provide the audience with the tools to actively participate in the public conversation, which usually means creating content in whatever medium: e-mail, mobile phones, digital cameras, online editing suites, webcams or texting and on whatever scale necessary.

Networked Journalism, therefore, has to be regarded not as a final product, but as a continuous process shared in by the professionals and society that takes place in a space carved out by new media technology. This shared sphere is labelled by professor Roger Silverstone as mediapolis in his work Media and Morality: On the Rise of the Mediapolis. Utilizing this concept, Silverstone makes a successful attempt to conceive this cutting-edge journalism.

Networked Journalism is by nature democratic and delivers an unquestionable public service, which I firmly believe should remain journalism’s main principle. But in order for Networked Journalism to take place, the responsibility of the professionals but also of the public is crucial. To exercise meaningfully access to the information, the audience requires what Charlie Beckett describes as media literacy, which means the ability of the public to make use of a wide range of media in order to access and understand the information contained in them. Should the audience want to take this ability to a higher level, it would have to comprehend the information provided by the media to the point of being able to analyze, question and even construct a critical opinion. Once the public has obtained these participatory tools it will be “networked to journalism.”

We’re already there
Whether journalists are in favour of this border crossing or not, it is too late to stop it. Citizens have already welcomed what it means to be included in all the aspects of newsgathering, the production and the publication of news information. We must be aware, too, that there will always be attempts to limit people speaking for themselves. This is why it is so important that anyone seeking to stand up for freedom of expression should seek to build Networked Journalism.

It is indeed a wonderful time to be a journalist because we can help the audience engage in the challenges we face, which is the first step to overcome them. It is also the best time to be a meaningful and practical link between society and power; doing so helps people empathise with the policies affecting us all.

Networking is the only way of becoming an active member of the changing society. It is also the way commitment to problems emerges, and that is exactly where the greatness of our profession lies. Consequently, another golden age of journalism is about to arrive.

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Flickr images from users 45street and Binkiexxx

Spain’s digital dilema

A Fonsagrada is a small Spanish town situated in the mountains of the north-west province of Galicia. The history of this village of no more than 5000 inhabitants is linked to the well known pilgrim way to Santiago de Compostela, but in April 2008 A Fonsagrada was in the spotlight in Spain for a very different reason: it became the first Spanish municipality where the analog blackout took place. Many years have passed since 1961, when the first analogical television signal arrived at this picturesque Galician town, which more than a year ago welcomed in the 21st century.

In December 2005 the European Commission recommended that all its member states should have completed the digital switchover by 2012. The digital television transition (DTT), also known as the digital switchover or analog blackout, refers to the process in which analog television broadcasting is turned into digital television. For us, the end-users, the DTT means an improved image quality and sound reception, a major increase of TV channels and the so long-desired interactivity, in contrast with the unidirectional televisión. DDT has also.

DTT made its entrance into Europe and although not all of the European countries have ceased analogical television transmissions, “the process has already been completed in countries such as Germany, Finland, Luxembourg, Sweden, the Netherlands, in Flanders here in Belgium, as well as in major areas in Austria”, outlined Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Telecoms and Media at Lisbon Council’s Ludwig Erhard Lecture in Brussels on 9 July.

A further group of countries have already begun the analog blockout and Spain is one of them.

The Spanish government designed a transition plan that would be spread out in three stages. The first one started on the 30th June 2009 and 13% of the Spanish population was affected by it; the second one will commence on the 31st December 2009 and will cover 32% of the population; the final stage will take place the 3rd April 2010, after which analogical television transmissions will no longer function in Spanish territory.

Previous to this schedule, the Spanish government put into practise two DTT transition tests. The first one, as mentioned above, was carried out in the town of A Fonsagrada. A Fonsagrada was chosen because its difficult geographical situation would provide useful information as to how DTT would work in isolated areas with a small population. Soria, a province located north-east of Madrid, was the second location to try the analog switchoff. In this last case some 50.000 citizens were affected by the plan that seeked to serve as an example for the rest of the country.

In the year 2000 Spain was one of the first countries, along with the United Kingdom in 1998 and Sweden in 1999 to launch DTT with platforms heavily reliant on pay television. But in Spain the process between the launching of these platforms and the completion of analog switchoff has been pretty slow, whereas other European countries, such as Norway and the Netherlands, have been able to complete it within 2 years.

Thus, in recent years there have been a number of surveys and studies expressing disbelief in the future of digital television in Spain. The “Estudio de Opinión: Tendencias del Sector Audiovisual” (Study of Opinions of Trends in the Audiovisual Sector), carried out by Time Consultants for IESE's Public-Private Sector Research Center in June 2008, outlined that 60% of Spanish audiovisual industry leaders thought the country was little or not at all prepared for the switch to digital. Results also revealed that skepticism was even higher among private TV operators (74%) and local institutions (83%). On the other hand, technology companies and public television operators appeared to be less gloomy, saying that Spain was well or somewhat prepared (60 and 57% respectively).

Most criticisms related to the difficulties in achieving a wide coverage; the uncertainty sorrounding the date of the blackout; the little interest in DDT by certain TV operators; the absence of concrete plans of implementation; and the lack of action and information towards the viewers, who, at the end of the day, are the most affected part of this process.

Have they taken enough time to prepare us for it? Has the audience been engaged in this process? Changes in the media sector have to be based on a simple and self-interested truth: citizens must participe in them because an informed public will always respond better to these changes than a non well-informed one. The next example backs up this idea.

Yet in 2006, FACUA-Consumers in Action-, a Spanish non-governmental and non-profit organization, warned the government that the lack of information could make the digital transition more complicated. They informed that an important number of consumers living in areas with no DTT coverage had already bought DTT receptor units thinking that was all they needed to be able to capture the new digital transmition.

Completing the analog terrestrial platform in Spain will not be easy and it will be very interesting to observe how major cities like Barcelona or Madrid addapt to it. Yet at the beginning of 2009 figures were not very encouraging: DTT coverage was 90%, but not even 50% of Spanish households could reach the digital signal and, what is even worse, only 22% of them were DTT consumers. Something similar happened in the United States, where the analogical swithoff was planned for February the 17th, but it had to be put off until June because some 6 million households did not have access to it. Just a couple of months after the complete digital swithover took place, some NGO's have reported the problems that some public sectors such as inmigrants and families with a low level of incomes are facing difficulties to get access to the new digital television. Let's not hope this issue turns into a matter of civil rights.

This only comes to show it is imperative that gobernamental bodies, audiovisual industry leaders, private TV operators and local institutions strive hard together so that the so long-expected digital platform becomes a reality for everyone. This scenario will also let us see how society responds as a whole when it comes to adapting to the latest technology and its new products.

Back in A Fonsagrada a year and a half later, results have not been as expected. Some 18% of the population, according to data provided by the Xunta de Galicia, the regional government, have still no access to the digital transmition. Having stated this, it should be taken into account that these figures may not be very reliable due to the fact that the Xunta is not aware of how many inhabitants receive the digital signal from other platforms.

Whatever the case may be, if we are eager to experience television in the 21st century, we need only look towards a small village in the north of Spain, they should surely know by now about big changes!

As goes journalism so does climate change?

The fate of the political, financial, social and climate worlwide problems depends a great deal of the public understanding of the issue and it is here where media and journalists play a main role.

Whether these issues appear or not in the worldwide scenario and, if so, how long they endure, is very much connected with the importance that media gives to them, with the number of pages they occupy in the papers, with the impact of their images on TV and above all, with the public discussion that journalism generates around them.

Climate change has become one of the most debated subjects, uttered throughout media and the most powerful politicians in the world, and until recent times it was not a major problem for the public.

People are showing more concern about climate change because an informed public can do more things to resolve a problem than a less informed one. But I am afraid that when the coverage of the global warming becomes more limited, the public perception of its importance will also be reduced...so powerful are media in our society!!!

As media and journalism go, so goes the climate change??