Throughout its history, journalism has undergone several changes. These changes can be seen in terms of content, features, ownership etc in all print productions around the world.
All these changes happen as a result of society's evolution i.e capitalism and the introduction of new technologies. The most important factor must be the phenomenal growth of the Internet.
Guardian web pages few years agoThe idea that the New York Times will only be available as an online version in five years time seems rather weird. Baudrillard would say that we are in a historical moment in which the virtual world is taking over the physical. Baudrillard's interpretation might be right or not but what is sure is that screens of computers are – at least in the western civilization - the most used battlefield for black words and white surfaces.
I believe journalism can be seen as a human body that is slowly but radically changing, becoming a less terrestrial being. When a newspaper or a broadcasting corporation (such as the Guardian or BBC) goes online today, it does not just become electronic, or virtual, but it becomes a multimedia creature that exists thanks to the co-existence of different media forms.
The most famous form of multimedia is a podcast. Guardian video home
Wikipedia explanation of a podcast is the following: “A podcast is a digital media file, or a series of such files, that is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and personal computers.” The mechanics of it is “an automatic mechanism whereby multimedia computer files are transferred from a server to a client, which pulls down XML files containing the Internet addresses of the media files. In general, these files contain audio or video, but also could be images, text, PDF, or any file type.”
Podcasts can also be videocasts, audiocasts, imagecasts or even a mixture of audio and video-images. I interviewed Angelo Miotto, subeditor and newseditor of the online newspaper PeaceReporter, in order to understand the new changes and challenges that new media has created in the world of journalism.
“The range of contents that is available today for any online publication has been made possible thanks to the development of new technologies that has been able to speed up web traffic and software. The traditional printed medias, thus, picked up the occasion to briefly re-elaborate their own image in order to gain new readers. This new audience, in the contemporary logic of capitalism, it is identify with contacts to ‘sell’ to earn advertisings. The Italian experience demonstrates how in few years there was a real proper boom of the phenomenon. However editorial quality did not stick to quantity production.
Too often audio-videos to download are of very poor quality, edited in a rush or not precise in details. Moreover new hybrid experiences were introduced, such as a tv news realized into a radio studio inside a newspaper editorial unit. This is the case of ‘la Repubblica’, one of the most read daily Italian newspapers. la Repubblica multimedia The website is full of news and fast contents but it is fashion or gossip news that are predominant on multimedia sections. In order to get a quick idea of this you just need to compare the multimedia contents of
‘la Repubblica’ and the ones of the New York Times. Online version of newspapers developed in a dynamic way; often readers are called to vote on dolls or called to participate through forums and blogs. However, the most innovative proposal is the one launched by the Spanish newspaper El Pais. Elpais.com, the most visited online newspaper in Spain, build up a section called Yo periodista (I journalist). In this section readers are able to produce the final product that will be published online.” Multimedia [podcast] improved Internet possibility of creation, therefore journalism ones too. What Mr. Miotto made clear, though, is the fact that editors and journalists should not forget that quality of production must come before quantity. A correct use of technologies can lead to interesting results; an abuse of multimedia would just create chaos.
Example of PeaceReporter audiocast
Example of PeaceReporter photogallery
PeaceReporter multimedia gallery
No comments:
Post a Comment