Cyberpolitics: Week 9

Grassroots media

History of Modern Media

Pamphleteering tradition

- Publick Occurrences (25 Sept 1690), 1st U.S. (Boston) newspaper - by Benjamin Harris (1673-1716)

- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790): Pennsylvania Gazette

- Stamp Duty (1765): colonial repression of press freedom

- Thomas Paine (1730-1809) - 1791 "rights of man" and 1798 - french revolution: early pamphleteer

Political and technical infrastructure for newspapers to emerge

- Independence of U.S.A (1776)

Note: Media and nation building - imagined community

- 1st Amendment by democrats (1787): press freedom

- 1800s: Postal system for newspaper distribution

- 1814: Times’s printing machine 500 X 4 page / hr

Early day newspapers

- 1833: New York Sun by Day Benjamin. H (Crime and Scandal)

- 1835: New York Herald by Bennett, James Gordon (Social reform)

- 1844: telegraph - factual information

- 1848: Associate Press founded (6 newspapers)

- 1851: New York Times by Raymond, Henry Horace

- 1861-1865: U.S Civil War: Information based; no more anonymous report (military concern)

- 1885: Printing machine: 25,000 / hr

Corporate era began

- 1900: Associate Press (690) - fair and objective rather than localism

- 1900s: Corporate era - 1960-70s - monopoly of big media. e.g Cable - cross media ownership (mobile + cable)

The Internet Era -

The rise of We the Media

Technological background: the Read-Write Web

Mailing lists and forumsBlogsWikiSMSMobile cameraInternet radio and podcastP2PRSS revolutionSocial media - Facebook and twitter

Changes and challenges for Journalism

- lower the gate- producer vs. consumer- changes in professional journalism - conversation and accuracy challenge- quality issue: trust / rumor, new media spinning, cut and paste- echo chamber- challenge to media industry and sustainability issue

Discussion

Do you still read newspapers? what do you trust more, the newspapers, T.V, online forum or

friends’ words? why? are you willing to pay for the news? in what circumstances you are willing? what do you think is the future of

journalism?

Case I: Alternative media - professional model

Alternet - counter right-winghttp://www.alternet.org/about/index.html

Case II: Citizen media - amateur modelOhmynews!

1987: democracy - news monoploy2000 Feb: founded - tips system. 2002: presidential election2003: business model establish: making profit2004: USD20000 tips record in 5 days - go international2005: international citizen reporter - peak time around 20 staffs- ranked 6th, 2 millions readership.

70-80% of news are provided by citizen journalists. About 20% is provided by professional journalist.

2006: softbank - Japan Ohmynews

2008 Aug: Japan Ohmynews close down -- Ohmylife!

 

2006 Survey

Motivation: Freedom of expression and information dispersal

Recent close of Japan Ohmynews - model cannot be reproduced

Case III: Twitter - Social media model

Iran’s twitter revolution - during election June 2009

China’s twitterer action - micro action counter-acting the GFW

Problems

- over-production of information (esp. social media)- no change / negative impact regarding the diversity of information- sustainability issue, both mainstream and alternative- local rather than global / international