OMNI and the Fox News Strip Club.

On Tuesday (7th September) the new OhmyNews International Curator-in-chief Joe McPherson wrote a post on the site discussing OMNI's new direction.

One thing McPherson wrote about was the idea of a region specific approach to reporting on citizen journalism with dedicated curators for different areas. Not only will the site contain region specific information on citizen journalism but according to McPherson, OMNI will also provide 'tips and resources for citizen journalists'.

He also listed the following as things to watch out for in the future:

- Run-downs on news happening to actual journalists
- Tips on using technology and resources to make individual journalists stand toe to-toe with established media
- Regular employment opportunities
- Updates on how citizen journalists affect news culture

I wrote earlier that I thought there was potential for OMNI to act as a sort of watch-dog for citizen reporting. I don't know if they hope to achieve that but either way, its going to be exciting to see OMNI developing in the coming months.

- See McPherson's post in full here. Its only short.

Funding Ideas: YouCommNews, The PIJ Foundation & Kickstarter.

In FBtG's first ever post we talked about Ohmy News International (OMNI) an English language version of the Korean citizen journalism website of the same name. Today I want to talk about YouCommNews, another example of citizen journalism that is operating a little closer to home.

YouCommNews is an initiative launched earlier this year by The Public Interest Journalism Foundation (PIJF), a part of the Institute of Social Research at The Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne which aims to:

'develop new approaches to journalism that “maximize and explore the applications of emerging media technologies”. This comes in the wake of major technological, economic and demographic changes which are affecting the viability of established media organizations'.

YouComm is modelled almost identically off of a US citizen journalist site called Spot.Us. The concept works around the idea of public contributions being made not only for content but funding also. Ideas for stories are pitched by users on the site and then those ideas are funded (or not) by others interested in seeing the story published. The concept is unique because once stories are finished they aren't published on YouComm itself but are pitched to other media outlets, be it mainstream, independent or online.

YouComm has only been running for a few months and the official launch apparently took place yesterday at the NewNews conference run by the PIJF at the Melbourne Writer's Festival. However evidence already exists that the model can work. Another site, Kickstarter.com is a perfect example of ideas being funded not by large institutions with their own interests but by members of the general public. Kickstarter is not just (or primarily) a journalism site either; it funds art, dance, photography, film, theatre and much more.

- The Chair of the PIJF Margaret Simons writes a somtimes active blog over on Crikey called 'The Content Makers, you can check it here.

- YouComm itself is not independently funded. Part of its funding comes from The Financial and Energy Exchange Group (FEX) and The Victorian Government Department of Innovation, Industry & Regional Development.

Protest!

Interesting to see that the protest by Afghani asylum seekers being held in detention today in Darwin seems to have, if only momentarily, shifted the debate in Australia on migrants from BOATS! STOP THE BOATS! WHEN WILL THE BOATS STOP!? WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN? To an actual focus, albeit a fairly brief one, on the people behind the fifteen thousand volt electric fences.

The best thing I read was this quote from The SMH - One of the protestors questioning the current ban on Afghani Asylum Seekers being granted refugee status because it is supposedly safe there now:

If Afghanistan is safe, why are there Australian soldiers there? Why are there American soldiers there?".

A valid question and its refreshing to hear it being asked. Hopefully the next step is the media asking it themselves, rather than via proxy.

- And just quietly, Media Watch on Monday night raised a topic that tied in quite well with what I wrote about in my last post. Probably deliberately. Check it here

Some Fun!

One of the first things first year media students are shown either in lectures or tutorials on media ownership is a pie chart showing the 'big five' or 'big six' or big whatever of media corporations and the companies they own.

The big five as far as I’m concerned consists of Time Warner, Walt Disney Corporation, New Corp, Viacom & GE. Bertelsmann, Sony & CBS all get honourable mention as well.

I can't find the pie chart anywhere but the Columbia Journalism Review has a pretty excellent listing of publications owned but not just the big whoevers but also a myriad of smaller media corporations. Have a look and see what vested interests your favourite publication has hidden away!

For me one of the worst things about the concentration of media ownership might operate at a local level. For example, in Australia we all know that our print media is essentially controlled by two companies - Fairfax and News Ltd (a subsidiary of News Corp) but when we say this what we're generally thinking of is the Sydney Morning Herald and the Daily Telegraph in Sydney or The Age and The Herald Sun in Melbourne. We think less about what that means for the way news operates locally. Where I live, for example, there are two publications, The Advertiser and The Chronicle , the former is owned by Fairfax Media, the latter by News Ltd.

Consider this on a wider level and you essentially have a dichotomy of messages being delivered to what is for all intents and purposes the same audience at two different points of attack. It is difficult to say with any certainty what kind of effect that might have on said audience but it certainly seems obvious that this kind of monopoly on information can be in no way a positive thing (except maybe if you happen to be Rupert Murdoch or John Fairfax). Less diversity of ownership means less debate and less debate means less hard questions being asked of those in power. I for one don't think its too much of a leap of imagination to blame the extremely lack lustre federal election and the equally frustrating result we all just witnessed, at least in part, on the lack of robust debate emanating from within our media outlets.

The Pleasures of Distraction.

On Tuesday, August 24th, members of al-Shabab, an Islamic military group formerly associated with the Islamic Court Union (ICU) and categorised as a terrorist group by The Australian government attacked a hotel in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu. Reports vary as to how many people were killed in the attacks. Al Jazeera reported on Tuesday that at least 35 and up to 38 people including eight members of parliament had been killed. The Guardian had the figure at 32 including six members of parliament and The Independent placed the figure slightly higher at 33.

The attack came a day after a spokesman for al-Shabab declared a ‘massive, final’ war against ‘invaders’, an apparent reference to the 6000 strong African Union presence in the country.

Since the attack on Tuesday fighting has continued in and around Mogadishu according to Al Jazeera who are claiming on their website that the death toll has risen to over 60 people since Tuesday.

So, who cares?

Well, not the Australian media apparently. Since Tuesday The Australian has ran zero stories in its print edition on the attacks. On Wednesday they posted an Associated Press piece on their website and unfortunately that means they lead the charge in terms of coverage as neither the SMH, The Telegraph nor The Age have printed or posted anything on the attacks. It’s a telling judgement of the fickle nature of the news cycle. Somalia is, let’s face it, old news.

If Only!

A quote taken from an 1852 piece by John Delane, the then editor of The Times.

The first duty of the press is to obtain the earliest and most correct intelligence of the events of the time and instantly by disclosing them to make them the common property of the nation. The press lives by disclosures ... bound to tell the truth as we find it without fear of consequences - to lend no convenient shelter to acts of injustice and oppression, but to consign them to the judgement of the world ... the duty of the journalist is the same as that of the historian - to seek out truth, above all things, and to present to his readers not such things as statecraft would wish them to know, but the truth as near as he can attain it.

Taken from Louw. E, The Media and the Political Process, Sage Publications, London, 2005.

Bridging the Digital Divide.

Last week representatives from The ALP, The Coalition and The Australian Greens took part in an ‘election communications debate’ at the National Press Club in Canberra. The debate went for about an hour and focussed mainly on the government’s proposed National Broadband Network (NBN), the Coalition’s alternative policy and the proposed net filter. For those of you interested, the debate can be seen in full here.

My own concern lies in the assumptions made by all three speakers on some of the specific benefits that any kind of broadband system be it the NBN or otherwise would automatically bring to bear. These assumptions have to do with the perceived benefits of access. In the words of the ALP Minister for Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy Stephen Conroy, widespread access to high speed broadband in Australia would ‘bring an end to the tyranny of distance’.

This idea has been generally considered to be a self-evident truth. For Australian politicians from both sides access = equality. This assumption is a dangerous one. On September 3, 2009 Social Media Researcher Danah Boyd gave a speech on the emergence of social inequalities and divisions online, especially in regard to the social media sites Facebook and MySpace. Boyd’s speech was aimed at an American audience and focussed on social media, but some of the observations that she makes can be placed more generally in a debate about the benefits of access to promoting social equality.

As Boyd states, “For decades, we've assumed that inequality in relation to technology has everything to do with "access" and that if we fix the access problem, all will be fine…Yet increasingly, we're seeing people with similar levels of access engage in fundamentally different ways. And we're seeing a social media landscape where participation "choice" leads to a digital reproduction of social divisions”.

Looking at the differences between Facebook and MySpace Boyd first noted that the perception that MySpace was a fading force was based on the remarkable growth of Facebook rather than the decline of MySpace. In fact, over 2008/2009 MySpace received 70 million visitors in the US alone. Boyd argued that rather than this being simply a case of overlap of users, it was possible to detect a social barrier evolving between the two sites. Over 2006/2007 while studying the social media practices of teenagers in the US Boyd noted that some of the reasons for why teens chose one or another social media site generally had to do with things like value perception, aesthetics and the practices of their friends. As Boyd states these things are “inherently intertwined with issues of race, socioeconomic status, education and other factors that usually make up our understanding of "class."

Essentially, what she found in the differences between Facebook and MySpace users was a digital variation of traditional class based urban migration, or ‘white flight’. “Whites were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. The educated were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. Those from wealthier backgrounds were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. Those from the suburbs were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. Those who deserted MySpace did so by "choice," but their decision to do so was wrapped up in their connections to others, in their belief that a more peaceful, quiet, less-public space would be more idyllic”.

Now at first the exposure of a racial and class based divide in US digital cultures might seem a little bit removed from the implications of widespread broadband in Australia, but take a moment to think about it. Our social frame of reference, or homophily, is what we structure our lives around. It has an effect on the ways we engage with people and the way that we formulate our ideas. To assume that once 97% of Australians have access to high speed internet we’ll all have equal access to health, education and economic benefits (which is what the parties are assuming) is way off the mark. To assume that once we can all watch Julia Gillard’s latest YouTube video we will be equally politically enfranchised misses the fact that social divisions existed in Australia a long time before people in the city had high speed broadband. As Boyd states, “If you want people to connect around politics and democracy, information and ideas, you need to understand the divisions that exist”.

In the same way that Habermas’ Public Sphere was never equal, neither is the internet and policy makers would do well to understand that, rather than place an unfounded sense of optimism in the development of net based communication.


- Conroy & Smith took part in another debate on Lateline last night, read the transcript here.

- Danah Boyd has a website which gives you a bio, links you to her blog, Twitter, published articles and Ani Difranco lyrics, among other things. Check it here.

Building an ARK.

The Australian Policy and History network was set up in March 2010 in a collaborative effort led by historians from The University of New England, Deakin and the ANU. It aims at linking historians with policy makers, the media and the public.

David Lowe from Deakin is one of the sites founders and he explained how the site worked in a recent article for D!ssent. "Essentially, historians whose work finds echoes in current policy debates are encouraged to post short, digestible syntheses or slightly longer reports, that can be found easily in an online environment".

The site itself seems to still be a work in progress but it is clear from the content available already that APH could become a valuable resource not just for policy makers but anyone with an interest in providing themselves with an historical platform on current issues, a service the mainstream media is desperately bad at providing.

Here is a link for just one example of the types of content the site provides. Its an article by Bronwyn Hopwood of the University of New England (do people call it The University of New England, or can I just say UNE?) arguing for the establishment of an Australian Repository of Knowledge (ARK) that would be available to all Australian universities, secondary schools and public libraries to ensure the lasting availability of and access to academic material and also to encourage its use by the general public.

Oh My!

At the beginning of the month OhmyNews International announced that from September it would be shifting its focus from that of a participatory based news site to a blog based format commenting on the world of citizen journalism itself.

OhmyNews International (or OMNI) is an offshoot of OhmyNews, a South Korean citizen journalism website founded in 2000 by Oh Yeon-ho, a South Korean journalist. Ohmy's citizen based format is generally considered to be the first of its kind in Korea and the site has played an influential role in Korean politics and society since its inception. In 2002 for example, Ohmy was one of the driving forces behind the election of reformist president Roh Moo-hyun (such was their influence that upon coming to power Roh granted Ohmy his first interview). The establishment of OMNI in 2004 was an attempt to expand upon that initial success in a more far reaching arena.

However, the new direction taken by OMNI can be read in two ways. On the one hand it could be seen as evidence of the limitations of the myriad of citizen based journalism sites currently in existence. 'Old' or 'Sticky Media' journalists never tire of lamenting the failure of users of participatory media sites like Ohmy to sufficiently 'bear witness' to the events which they are reporting, a valid concern and one apparently acknowledged by OMNI in the statement posted on the site. According to OMNI the vast and varied array of content received led to editing difficulties. "With stories coming from places like Afghanistan, Brazil, Zimbabwe and everywhere in-between, it was impossible for our editors to accurately check each story".

On the other hand though, the move can be seen as an exciting new development in the world of participatory media. OMNI claims that the new site will be an attempt to "highlight the most important events and stories in the citizen journalism world...(to) work with our citizen reporters all over the globe to do original reporting about the citizen journalism happening everywhere...(and to) commission critical essays on where citizen media is headed".

Personally, I tend to lean toward the latter view. In its new format OMNI has the potential to act simultaneously as a kind of citizen journalism watch dog and facilitator, a move that could eventually lead to a solution to the problems so often raised by mainstream media. Whether or not OMNI can pull this off is another question all together (one only needs to look as far as the spectacular failure of Ohmy News Japan to see just how wrong these things can go).

In any case OMNI's upcoming transformation signals an interesting new development in the way people approach citizen journalism and is a perfect jumping off point for this blog!