The business of journalism faces a plethora of difficult questions as it transitions from a print-centric world into the networked, digital age. But the answers to many of the most pressing questions — how to build business models, how to build an audience — have been worked out by those industries that have already navigated this road. In Tech Meme, Ball State University Assistant Professor Brad King discusses the lessons journalists can learn by examining the historical convergence of technology, society and media.
There Is No Social Media There
In the rush to catch up with the fast-moving digital world, we sometimes forget how and why our world evolved the way it has. For many, social media has become a way to talk to people. For the architects of modern technology, emerging software and hardware tools were a way to listen, see and think better.
Transformations: Stories from the Digital Front Lines
There’s much industry-wide debate about the future of the media business, but little focus on the day-to-day changes happening within the industry. It’s in here, though, that we can find the shifts in daily practices that will eventually become modern journalism. These are stories of those who are witnessing — and working on — those changes.
South by Southwest 2010: Five Good Minutes
The South by Southwest Interactive Conference & Festival is more than just a social and media technologies conference. It’s an experience. To help capture the spirit of innovation and thinking for Tech Meme, I decided to forgo the normal panel and keynote recaps. Instead, I spent five minutes with some of the smartest people I know and asked them one question: In the media sphere they operate, what’s the most interesting thing they see.
Why Newspapers will Build Bad Business Models
Rupert Murdoch raised quite a stir in the publishing world when he announced last month that he would, in the near future, remove his company’s news content from Google. His reasoning: Google is stealing, making money off headlines, decks and images, which ultimately hurts his bottom line since people aren’t viewing that content on his company’s sites.
Why Digital Rights Management Won’t Save the News
Within the last year, large and small newspaper organizations have moved previously free content behind subscription walls that require readers to pay for access. The new model is fraught with peril, mostly notably the drop in online circulation as content becomes inaccessible through traditional search.
Hallmark Homes Inc. approached the Ball State University Department of Journalism with an interesting request: assemble three teams of students for a project with ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The catch for the team, though, was that the show won’t air until sometime in January, which meant we had to build not only the network, but the media outreach as well.
What Computer Games Can Teach Journalists
Britannia was the epicenter of the first commercially success massively multiplayer online role playing game. This “persistent world”, which existed whether or not players were logged into the game, changed the way we viewed online communities. Everything existed within a communal space, which meant Richard Garriott, the designer, and the rest of the Ultima Online team had to figure out how to foster and negotiate that community of people.
Brad King is an assistant professor of Journalism and an Emerging Media Fellow at Ball State University. He is also on the advisory boards for South by Southwest Interactive and Carnegie Mellon’s ETC Press.