The reflection inspection

In the first lecture for Convergent Media Practices, I was surprised to find that all three of the assessments for the subject were related, and that each built upon the previous in helping to improve our understanding of ‘convergence’ in preparation for the final essay. I thought this was a very helpful way to go about it, being a first year subject, it would very much help the first years ease into university culture. I was very pleased when I read through the assessment outlines the first week and discovered that every assessment I completed in BCM112 was going to make the next one just a little bit easier. The amount of effort Ted and the tutors put into planning everything, is appreciated and kudos to Ted for allowing us to submit assessments on-line, because hello, it is 2013.

When I discovered we had to blog, I was very excited, however I was completely unaware how big the blogoshpere is and how many people use them! With this is mind, I opened my WordPress account (which took almost a whole day because I couldn’t decide which theme!) and began to blog, knowing all the while that to get the most out of this blogging experience I had to make sure that I could always relate my writing back to the notion of ‘convergence’ and how it is changing the relationship between audiences and technologies. I was quite surprised when I started building up followers and receiving ‘likes’ on my posts, it also helped my confidence in writing.

I consider my first blog, ‘Passive Old, Interactive New‘  as a great documentation of me familiarising myself with the components of blog writing   This post included a reflection on the reading and video materials for that week, use of linking and embedding, as well as images. That was joined by my thoughts on how  the new digital content age has changed traditional media. It is clear I tired to make it relevant to that week’s topic as well as, the wider theme of how industry and user practices are changing in today’s converging media landscape. One ting that I needed to improve, however, was spelling and grammar.

Image via amerigas.com

When I wrote ‘Quick! Record this! I was beginning to collate resources for my annotated bibliography. I had found so many useful and interesting sources on my media platform, Keek, that I decided to use the platform as an example to illustrate how the emergence of citizen journalism is impacting on traditional news sources in today’s converging media landscape. This post is definitely one of my best in terms of value of content, and I will use some of the themes and ideas I explored in this post in the final essay.

My final post for BCM112 ‘The troll under the bridge, I mean laptop’ , I consider to be my best. It highlights how far I have come with my writing in terms of my ability to reflect on the subject material, and integrate

interesting and relevant examples and statistics to support my arguments.  I still can’t believe that in 2013, differences in gender, sexuality and ethnicity is still an issue!

Blogging has done so many things for me, such as; introduce me to a whole new world that I was previously unaware of. It has allowed me to read other people’s opinions on topics that interest me and I intend on continuing my blog long after this subject is finished. One of my favourite things was coming up with new blog titles every week.  I discovered that I am a terrible writer in regards to my syntax, spelling, grammar and that I must spend more time editing my posts. With that in mind, I believe my writing is improving with every post. BCM112 has introduced me to so many new concepts, such as participatory culture and transmedia, that are vital for a successful career in today’s media environment.

Extreme makeover journalism edition

I remember when every Sunday my family and I  would walk to the Newsagent to get the Sunday Telegraph and I would rip out the ‘Funday’ section to read the comics and jokes. Today that seems rather a foreign concept when I can just wake up on a Sunday open my iPad and watch an unorthodox presentation of the news for free.

My Sunday childhood newspaper (Sunday Telegraph)

The advent of citizen journalism brings on the demise of traditional journalism. However, there may be a chance that traditional journalism could develop and transform to join citizen journalists.

The current model for traditional journalism is:

• We package the news for you in a bundle
• You buy it from us because you trust us
• We sell advertising space

Every component of this model is under attack. The internet has usurped traditional media, like newspapers and radio as the most able medium to meet the needs and wants of the consumer or prosumer.

Academics, like Dr. Alex Bruns explain this matter of contention, where the audience wishes to not just use the product but actually produce. Bruns labels this as ‘produsage’.  So in order for traditional journalism to survive they need to makeover their current dynamic. They need to construct  a new model where they join forces with citizen journalists.

For example, Keek is a new platform where users can upload a 36 second video about anything. This has been used for citizen journalism for example a user uploaded odd weather patterns in Miami which alerted fellow Miami district residents to prepare for the adverse weather conditions and then hours later footage filmed on Keek was later shown on the nightly news.

There are numerous platforms such as Youtube, Keek or Storyful are transforming the journalism industry and it will be interesting to see how the big media corporations will keep responding and adapting to this revolution and how  they shape the future.

Here is a video of Brian Conely explaining that Citizen Journalism going to change the media landscape in the 21st century.We no longer have arm-chair journalists, but rather, ordinary people and their extraordinary tales.

Quick! Record this!

Today we are steering away from the traditional sources like print, media, radio or television for information. They have now become somewhat outdated and have converged and/or mutated onto one smaller device such as an iPad. We can now control the content we wish to see or produce our own through sites such as Keek (the media platform I have been following). The people who participate in this new way of life are a prosumer which is a neologism from producer and consumer.

from dia.com

With the emergence of prosumers comes another new participator to the media scene, known as the citizen journalist  This is a person who basically takes recording news stories and images into their own hands and distributing across multiple platforms such as Keek.

Clay Shirky’s presentation at TED asserts that  “there is a new media landscape where innovation is happening everywhere and is moving from one spot to another”. He describes it as the “largest increase in expressive capability in human history”.We should keep in mind, however, with so many people uploading their own content, the creditability of the source.

When we consume a  monologic style of media, there is mostly always someone filtering the message to make it pretty close to the truth, but in dialogic media and active society, everyone can write what they think and label it as true, for example posting on Facebook that there is a fire when there really isn’t.

There are times though, that this citizen journalism as helped society immensely. Take the outbreak of the SARS virus  in China, for example. Janey Gordan’s  ‘Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies‘  highlights the worth of dialogic media: that is free of ‘gate-keepers’. While the government attempted to stop the flow of information about the disease (in Beijing after investigations by the World Health Organisation was there to conduct an audit, patients were driven around on a bus), citizens were SMSing  each other updates as the where the infected areas were and home remedies that they thought may work to curb the disease.

Keek, the platform I am following allows users to partake in this participatory culture. It allows users to   users to share short video clips with their friends, much like Instagram allows them to do with their photographs or twitter with their information bites. It has been coined as ‘twitter for videos’.  You can share a 36 second video to any one, any where in the world and wait for a ‘keekback’ (a person’s response). Keek says that they are redefining the future…

“Keek is a new kind of social network. It’s the easiest way to share video updates with friends. You can upload video status updates (“keeks”) using your webcam or the Keek app for Android and iPhone. Connect with friends, share funny videos and more. Join the social video sharing revolution!”

This is just one of the numerous platforms estbalished in this participatory culture. Whilst I believe this participatory culture is a great thing for our society, I don’t think I will be making the switch to getting all of my news on these new platforms. Below is link to a great blog that goes into more depth about participatory cultre. The video is also worth a watch to see just how much has changed (it is scary), but I warn you; it projects how this media revolution could get out of control and that is a little scary…

http://debradejong.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/about-five-types-of-prosumers.html