Social Change and New Technology in Journalism

I was able to make it to most of the 9 a.m. panel and the two keynote speakers yesterday, and I came away with some half-baked ideas that I think are worth considering:

 1.)   How can the immediate and sometimes viral tendencies of online content affect social/political/etc. change? I’ll give you an example: Goodman talked about when she was arrested at the Republican Party’s most recent presidential convention in St. Paul. She said that she was arrested while covering a protest that was happening on the streets of the city, despite the fact that she had her press credentials dangling from her neck in clear view. Luckily her arrest was videotaped and posted on the Internet. Within days, she said, the video had spread across the Web at an astonishing pace, and because of that she and rest of her crew, who had also been arrested, were released. Interesting story. Interesting topic as well.

 2.)   An idea that I got from the first panel was the use of portable equipment to transfer content from one place to another while a reporter/photog is abroad. I was specifically thinking about solo journalism, in this case. With the increased need to cut costs at media outlets, some journalists have decided to become not only reporters, but videographers and photojournalists as well. These solo journalists go out on their own and cover a story by writing about it, taking some still photographs and shooting some video and/or sound and wrapping it all into one nice package to be published on the Web. Now to do this, they obviously have to use equipment that is small and light enough to be carried long distances. They also have to have specialized equipment so that they can transfer massive amount of info over satellite Internet connections, like in the case of a foreign correspondent who needs to send his or her content stateside from wherever they are in the world.

 Now the debate over solo journalism is a contentious one. Some believe that this is just a way to cut out photographers and only pay one person to do multiple people’s jobs, therefore cutting costs while diminishing the quality of content. This is a valid argument, I think, but I am hoping to keep that debate out of this idea. I think that if I were to do this as my project, I would simply present this as another way to gather information, and leave the debate up to the audience.

This is all I have now, but I’m sure more will come to me once I fully digest what I heard during the symposium.