Kismet Arts Tangent

“September 11th.” (Applaud.) Many questions can be answered with this famous date in United Statesian history. Did technology change on this date? not really. However, it was this happening that demonstrated the changes in the way we respond to events and each other. While traditional media was looping the images of the attack, people on the Internet were talking about it.

Traditional media is is expensive. Consider the costs of distribution, materials, and don’t forget about contributers. The blogoshere has introduced a cheap and efficient mode of information flow. Not to say that digial media and distribution has solved all of the problems that face mass media in its form today, but it has certainly created a new network where money and catering to the people is not a high priority. The international market of the Internet can allow the most obscure information to be accessed. Consumerism takes a new level of gratification. Consumers have a new level of control. As the Cluetrain manifesto dictates, “markets are conversations.” With the new media, the input from consumers are a lot more personal, reliable, and easy to manipulate. Gillmor takes it a step further to say that “journalism are conversations.”

With that, people like closeness. They feel closer to independent productions with less intrusive ads. Bloggers have the resources to encourage a closer relationship to their consumer than ever before. Public radio is looking for a way, starting with podcasts. The rule of connecting with the new media consumer is that it has to be the ultimate convenience, easy, eye catching, or really specific. There are new rules for appealing to the new audience. When telephones are tied up, the TV is unresponsive, newspapers are a day late, the Internet, reaching across space, time and minds, connects the planet in a way like never before. Traditional media cannot keep up, but rather must join the pack.

Questions:
(1) In the history of journalism, there have been pampheteers, muckrackers, and now bloggers; what do these have in common?

(2) An alternate version of “where were you when the attacks happened?”: How did you communicate to others on (or about) September, 11th?

(3)What ways can internet sites, such as npr online, learn about their users’ demographics without some level of privacy invasion?