Aubrey Northam's Questions 4/10

1. Benkler seems to suggest throughout the reading that the 21^st century public sphere has different needs and wants from what the 20^th century commercial model of mass media offered. As we discussed in class, there is currently a “liminal” phase in which the media’s relationship with the new and evolving networked public sphere is not clearly defined. Benkler insinuates that volunteer-driven presses, specifically user-generated, blog based sites and party presses, are going to be an important facet of our future media regime. We can already see that in the prevalence of Wikileaks and the popularity of highly partisan news sources. But again, how is professional journalism supposed to be upheld in a networking public sphere that essentially doesn’t even support advertising? Or should the prosperity of journalism be an entirely separate concern from issues of a society turning to user-generated news as a primary source?

2. Clarke and Van Slyke discuss the same up-for-debate territory as Benkler, but seem to have a different perspective on networked media environments. I found their discussion of self-organized networks, or at least moderately user-incorporated media networks, refreshingly optimistic. They quote Amy Gahran that “we’re getting away from the idea that a journalist tells a story—it will be that a journalist offers a window for people to create their own meaning.” (244) Does this unique blend of professional journalism and citizen participation seem realistic though? It seems promising that we could keep the benefits of professional “packaged” journalism stories while opening a window to question sources and challenge perspectives, but how would user feedback be made constructive instead of just a deluge of commentary that we often see on today’s popular media platforms?

DMU Timestamp: April 10, 2012 02:15