The biggest thing Podcamp DC taught me was that I should be presenting. A number of times, a comment of mine would spin off into a conversation, and it gave me a lot of ideas about what people are looking for when they come to these conferences.
I’ve rested comfortably on the midlist for years, but I find myself with a lot to say on adapting organizations to the new media environment. That seems to come up from time to time, and it’s something I need to address more. But what I’m really dumbfounded about was that I came to a conference about social media, and could only engage the social media to the extent that I’m plugged into it by phone. I don’ t have a blackberry or an i-phone yet, and I’m still wondering if I wouldn’t be better served by, say, an N-95. What I do know is that I can’t afford a new subscription even if I do manage to come up with another gadget that facilitates my work. Today, case in point, I blew it on the Episcopal Cafe because I didn’t have a back-up way to connect to the internet. Although I’m going to try to post two posts this evening. I feel dumb. I look forward to my Saturday gigs.
I saw a post elsewhere that suggests bring a sponsor on board to provide wireless access. Priority one, IMO. Frankly, I was stunned that we couldn’t liveblog the event.
Generations and Social Media
But anyway, the two panels I found most useful were one on generations and social media and one on social media and journalism. In the first, Jessie Newburn debunked a number of my preconceptions about the reality of being sandwiched in between two generations–mostly the one that made me feel like our generation’s short shrift was something unique to generation x, when it’s not, per some academic models that track it as an 80-year cycle involving four 20-year generations, each generation having a distinct identity. Seeing generational theory tied to our own perceptions of what our generations are is a bit shocking when you find yourself nodding along (I’m square in the middle of gen x, and my son is square in the middle of the millennials) or when you find yourself violently disagreeing with how the archetypes don’t fit *you*.
Those were really long, barely readable sentences. Sorry! The long and the short of it, for me, was scholars recognize the short shrift given generation-x. Noting our dispensation toward survival, I wonder whether that is why some of us feel compelled to not be forgotten, to leave a legacy as best we can.
Social Media and Journalism
The second panel I really enjoyed was the journalism and social media panel. Andy Carvin and Jim Long have an unusual talent that they need to exploit more often: when you put two social media evangelists for major media networks together in a room and get them talking, the room fills to standing and flowing out the door. There’s a reason for this. They manage to have a nuanced discussion about very significant issues regarding the difference between new media and old media. As Jim points out, no matter how cheap technology gets for the citizen journalist who wishes to explore and exploit multimedia publishing, the traditional media outlets will always have the dedicated resources to break news fast, distribute the messages most widely, and to do so with the best technology.
The question that many of us ask, however, is whether traditional media will choose to continue their role as the fourth estate. Don’t get me wrong: I have never been a news reporter (although some of the coverage I provided certain political events at Temple University led debate and rhetoric professor Herb Simons to wonder aloud more than once why I wasn’t a high-profile reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer). The thing is, I chose not to go that direction in no small part because I had a gut feeling that my idea of news coverage wasn’t what sold newspapers anymore. Now, granted, I walked away from a Weekend Edition internship at NPR in 1991 because I decided to get married and have a kid instead, and wound up not getting my writing career off the ground for almost another decade. But, it seems to me that my instincts have been correct. After hearing former NBCer Jim Plante (now with the Bureau of Economic Analysis) tear into where he saw news media going 20 years ago and S. Dawn Jones rail against the trend toward infotainment, as well as several media people talking about their careers possibly becoming obsolete, I would put forward that the combined power of twitter-like tools, blogs, and platform-based solutions that integrate different kinds of publishing and conversation applications creates an environment of something like a fifth estate, acting as a watchdog to keep the fourth estate on track.
(Quick edit to add: I’m not the first to make the observation that new media can empower a fifth estate. What I’m suggesting is that the tools empower individuals to become a better “fifth estate,” and I’m encouraging people to think about how emerging media may in fact trump the fourth estate in terms of framing societal discourse in new ways that by definition involve the first-person account. That’s not new either. See Samuel Pepys.)
One question plaguing people accustomed to traditional media oversight: How can we, as responsible editors and publishers, surrender editorial control to the masses? The question came up, smack in the middle of Andy’s trying to answer my question about what new revenue models are emerging for traditional media in new media. I think answer to the control question has to do with how users interact in these spaces. In many respects, these communities police themselves.
Best quotes from the journalism panel, albeit paraphrased, both from Andy:
Twitter is a conversation in my pocket, and social media is NOT a publishing tool — it’s a conversation tool.
Watch the first 20-some minutes of their presentation (at about 13:45, I ask a question and find that my hands have a life of their own):
I think we could spend an entire day discussing these issues. I work for a monthly publication and I have a keen interest in alternative newsweeklies and their issues in this environment. There’s print and radio and television. And I know there are conferences that attract segments of this audience. But is there one that pulls them all, and do they ask these tough questions about “new journalism?”
All that aside, I think the word “new” is starting to degrade as a useful word.