DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES & JOURNALISM

Digital Technologies & Journalism

Digital Technologies & Journalism

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the statement that “digital technologies are deciding the future of journalism.” Electronic media will have the texture or the type of light reflection or the feel of paper. The kindle, for all of its e-ink hype is not a device to replace paper, but to emulate it enough so as to allow digital media technology to work behind a better reading interface. What will inevitably allow the kindle to gain marketshare on books, will not be its impressive simulation of paper reading surfaces, but it's ability to make print dynamic. This means that the readers of the future are eventually going to overcome their paper-codex fetishism for the practicalities of digital technology. we've seen this in sound reproduction (in an arc from the phonograph to the ipod) and in video (from celluloid to dvd) and no we are going to see it happen to paper.

Making print dynamic is the real mission of the emerging field of new media journalism. i using the term new media journalism in partial homage to john pavlik's seminal text on the subject “journalism and new media.” its worth a read if you want to get situated in why the standard practices producing journalism for the past fifty years are suddenly being overthrown. a quick google serach however we reveal that the 'new media journalism' is an operative buzz word being used by j-schools and media pundits alike. going back to 'making print dynamic' most definitions of new media journalism underscore the fact that unidimensional journalism (reporter writes story) have become insufficient in the digital age. this is for two reasons:

new digital based technologies like digital cameras, audio recorders, and computers have become cheap enough, light enough, and easy enough for journalists to use in the field

new digital markets (most notably the internet) have an infinitely insatiable desire for more content. (Xigen 2005 36-38)

Digital technology has thus supplied both the means and the ends of new media journalism. synthesizing the points above, new media journalism aspires to produce multidimensional journalism, or put it more literally, multimedia journalism (its a tragedy of semantics that the word 'multimedia' has become a somewhat dated term for cheesy graphics and limited interactivity circa 1997). and multimedia journalism in turn, is what is enabled and expected in the increasingly digitally mediated world we live in.

The first instantiation of the new media journalist did what the boston globe (aka boston.com) continues to do today. instead of just writing a story, the journalist might make a short accompanying web video, something like a tour of the neighborhood the article deals with, or a short interview with a person being profiled. eventually, the web video became something more akin to bite-sized broadcast journalism. something like what the wall street journal did recently on badminton players in san Francisco.

Photo galleries and discussion threads round-out new media journalism 1.0. again, good old ...