Martijn de Waal

The Dutch NGO Press Now asked me to set up a two day masterclass on New Media and Journalism for the students and staff at the Caucasus Media Institute in Yerevan, Armenia. The goal was to introduce the students of the journalism program with the most important themes in journalism and new media, and to discuss with the staff the possibilities to implement these themes in the curriculum. For the set up of the masterclass, see below the fold.

Day 1 Session 1:
From a closed media landscape to an open database

On the first day the focus was put on developments in the digital media landscape in general and the implications for journalists. The production, distribution and consumption of content works different in an online world. Journalists no longer have the monopoly on the production of relevant content. Authority and hierarchy work different in the networked media landscape of Web 2.0 than in the world of broadcasting and newspapers. At the same time this also offers opportunities to connect with audiences and communities and try to engage with them and bring out their ʻcollective intelligenceʼ. This means that the relation between journalists and the audience is changing.

The morning program was set-up to familiarize the students with recent insights on this digital media landscape. I introduced concepts such as Web 2.0, The Long Tail, Social Networks, Recommendation Algorithms, Media-Ecosystem, Networked Hierarchies, Search Engine Optimzalization and included lots of examples, some illustrated by video’s.

The main idea was to teach students to think of the media landscape as a giant database that includes both traditional journalistic content and texts(including audio and video) published by other sources ranging from ngo’s, governmental sources and amateurs. The products in this database range widely in scope, from scientific and well-researched content to the highly biased and the trivial. They include both traditional stories and narratives as well as forms of social communication.

With new technologies all these components in the database can be connected to each other. A newspaper article will lead to a discussion on weblogs, a social network like Facebook can be used to distribute a news video. The general trend is thus a movement from a closed, hierarchical media landscape that is ordered mostly by professional journalists to a much more open ‘ecosystem’ to which anyone can contribute and content can be organized in a myriad of ways. Now, what would be the role of the journalist in such an Ecosystem?

Day 1 Session 2:
The role of journalists in a media ecosystem

The afternoon program contained a session in which different point of views were introduced on what the developments described above could mean for professional journalists. These included both positive and optimistic accounts as well as more critical and pessimistic. Students were introduced with examples of ‘Citizen Journalism’, ‘We Media’, ‘Cultural Convergence’, ‘Gatewatching’, ‘Collective Intelligence’ and ‘Networked Public Sphere’. Examples were given of how non-professional journalistic weblogs, fora and other technologies such as Flickr or Google Maps contributed to, complemented, replaced or critically followed professional journalism and we discussed what this could mean for the way journalists work and engage with their audience. We also looked at more critical accounts: according to some theories the opening up of the media landscape leads to polarization, fragmentation and the celebration of the trivial. What could journalists do to counter these trends?

Day 2, Session 1
Cross Media Journalism
The first session was about cross media journalism. Based on a cross media project that I have worked on myself ( a documentary project called ‘7 weeks in China’) I gave some examples of how journalists could combine different media (e.g. television and internet, or radio and internet). We paid attention to two different interpretations of Cross Media. The first is the idea of using one media type to promote and/or distribute another. For instance tv can be used to promote a website, the website can be used to distribute a TV program on demand. The second interpretation of cross media is based on creating an experience that takes place on different media platforms and that relate to each other. E.g. A TV program can be used to tell an important journalistic story, where as the internet can be used for more in depth information afterwards or for organizing a community beforehand around a certain theme.

Day 2, Session 2
Six Lessons about New Media Journalists and their Audience

The goal of this session was to teach students to think of new journalistic formats, beyond single stories. They should try to see their contributions not as the end point of their journalistic work, but rather as part of a longer process. Articles could lead to discussions either on the website of the journalistic publication or outside. Or journalists could produce tools rather than stories that can make social and political processes more transparent.

How can journalist serve their audience best in a new media environment? The students were urged to to think of the internet as a ‘porous’ medium. This means that journalistic content can always be linked to, remixed on or distributed through external websites: a journalistic video that reappears on Youtube or is commented on a theme based weblog. Journalists can and should take advantage of this characteristic of the online environment.

This does not mean that everything has to be made as interactive as possible, but rather that journalists think of an editorial strategy: what kind of product do I want to provide? Who is the audience? Are they already active on the internet in existing communities, weblogs, social networks? How can I engage them? And how do I keep the audience engaged? Where do I want to engage them – either on the website of the journalistic publication, or perhaps better in external websites such as social networks? Are there already tools available that I could use to engage the audience? Or does my particular mission require to build new interactive tools on my own website?

I presented a lecture in which I gave an array of examples of how professional journalists and news organizations in different countries have been working with new media. I included both successes and failures in order to give students some idea of what could and what would not work in a new media environment. Different levels of engagement with audiences and user generated content were presented, as well as new formats for journalists.

Possible Extension Day 3
It would be easy to extend the workshop with one or two days with practical training, to give the students some insight in some of the important tools/media of the digital world: weblogs, wikis, social networks, online maps, and online video.