Mixed Media Culture (redux)J. Richard Stevens

Clinton/Lewinsky Clinton/Lewinsky ScandalScandal

• Important for two reasons:

• Broke and concluded on Internet

• Affected traditional journalism behavior

• Committee of

Concerned

Journalists

study:

““Mixed Media CulturMixed Media Culturee””

• Sources gaining power over journalists

• Decline of gatekeeping function

• The news of the day as it reaches the newspaper office is an incredible medley of fact, propaganda, rumor suspicion, clues, hopes, and fears, and the task of selecting and ordering that news is one of the truly sacred and priestly offices in a democracy. - Walter Lippmann, Liberty and the News, 1920

• Reporting culture is being overrun by argument culture

• http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2009/01/12/pn.teacher.accused.rape.cnn

New Producers

Rise of blogs, YouTube, Discussion forums, Social Networking

New forms of creation

New forms of dissemination

Amateurs in the media sphere

new relationships

The 1999 Bonfire Collapse

Austin360 coverage

OhMyNews.com

2000 site launch

"Every Citizen is a Reporter"

http://english.ohmynews.com/index.asp

New models, effects, problems

New Blends

The Results

The world of content creators and distributors is now more democratic

Audiences, even though fragmented, are better known to those who produce and distribute content

Media literate people are positioned to best decide how to benefit from their potential and limit their peril

Social NetworkingSocial Networking• 47% of Americans (59% of Internet users) belong to

a social networking platform

• average age increased from 33 to 38 in 2011

• half SNS users are over 35

• 58% of SNS users are female

• 92% of SNS users are on Facebook

• 29% use MySpace

• 18% use LinkedIn

• 13% use Twitter

• Who USES Twitter is also who CAN BE REACHED by Twitter