Shel Holtz's blog

Considering the fact that I have been working in public relations business for some years, it was almost a 'must' following Shel Holtz's musings on his A shel of my former self blog.

If you are interested in PR in connection with internet and social media I strongly recommend his blog as he provides lots of information, including podcasts, vlogs,.. and beside that, he is funny, so listening and watching him can be quite a pleasure.

In this vlog he speaks on the blogs in the heavily regulated industry like pharmaceutical, financial services… - how to engage in social media space without violating business regulations.

He is also the author of several books like Public relations on the net, Blogging for business (see the Amazon list). They are not full of theoretical perspective, more practical, but still very useful when trying to put things into practice.

CNN producer fired for blogging

Just a day before the CNN launched iReport Citizen journalism site, it fired a senior producer Chez pazienza for CNN’s “American Morning”. The reason: blogging.

Pazienza says the network fired him on the grounds that he violated its standards for journalists through his blog, Deus Ex Malcontent. He started his blog in may 2006 to "keep his mind sharp" while he was on a medical leave after an operation of a brain tumor.

I will not question whether the reasons for the CNN's decision were right or wrong or whether CNN's rules on employee writing were really "staggeringly vague and couldn't possibly apply to something as innocuous as a blog" as Pazienza says in his post on the end of his news career on CNN.

What would have happened if the newshouse like CNN accepted a different stand towards blogs? Do personal opinions of its staff really pose such a big threat to them?

Pazienza writes in its blog:

CNN fired me, and did it without even a thought to the power that I might wield as an average person with a brain, a computer, and an audience. The mainstream media doesn't believe that new media can embarrass them, hurt them or generally hold them accountable in any way, and they've never and they've never been more wrong.

In one of the previous posts I wrote: "It is interesting to see how traditional media is more and more prone to citizen journalism. But are they really open to ‘do it yourself’ media or do they just have to embrace them in order to keep and gain new audience?"

Is the answer still necessary?

Attention over information

With the ever growing number of social networking sites we can see that with the web 2.0 the information is no longer the most important. What stands out today is the attention economy and the attention is the commodity that all the important players in the internet business fight for.

With the constant growth of online media, blogs, news, videos, photos, podcasts we become sunken in the number of information we can no longer follow. Attention becomes the most scarce commodity which bring us to Herbert Simon, who was (according to Wikipedia) perhaps the first person to articulate the concept of attention economics:

“…wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

The truth is that new startups will have to put much more effort to be recognized and accepted or even noticed than ever before. Big virtual communities or social networking sites like YouTube, Facebook, MySpace … can be of a great help by recognizing new applications, blogs, media… Highly connected people are today probably much more valuable than an individual.

At trying new platforms taking into account the user/customer is necessary. Almost every demographic group is somehow present on the internet these days, and users are getting smarter about their tools.

It is good to know who's doing what in social media. Forrester provides a nice graphical representation:

CNN lets the community decide what news is

Yesterday CNN launched a fully user generated website with turning iReport to the community and launching iReport.com. The website is fully dedicated to citizen journalism.

CNN launched iReport initiative in 2006 and with its help according to Mediaweek received nearly 100.000 news-related photos and videos from viewers, including nearly 10.000 this past January alone. Less than 10% of the those submissions have appeared on CNN.com or the cable channel.

The site is open to all users to upload whatever content they choose apart from obscene, hateful and copyrighted material. The content on iReport is unedited and unfiltered, but users also have the power to flag the content for review by moderators if they find it inappropriate.

It is interesting to see how traditional media is more and more prone to citizen journalism. But are they really open to ‘do it yourself’ media or do they just have to embrace them in order to keep and gain new audience?

Life Online is what YOU make of IT

Another Safer Internet Day is marked worldwide today, which is organised by Insafe, a network of 23 organizations in 21 countries and is aimed at children and younger internet users. This year’s theme is “Life online is what YOU make of IT”. Its goal is to help young people better understand the impact that the internet can have on their lives, both positively and negatively.

I think it’s important to stress that Internet hat both sides – positive as well as negative and that all depends on me, you … the way I use it. As the Internet can not have the negative or positive connotation per se. It derives only from the use of it

As the years before also this year children and young people were invited to participate in the competition with projects answering questions like: Is the internet a positive or negative element in today’s world? Are mobile phones only about “connecting people”? Can we believe everything we see on the internet? Do we behave differently online than in the “physical” world? How does our behaviour impact on the online environment?

Each year a series of events are run to promote safer use of the internet and one of them is the worldwide “blogathon” where postings and comments are encouraged from visitors, children, schools, parents... This year takes place another blogathon, based on this year’s theme “Life online is what YOU make of IT”.

We can see blogathon an example of incidental citizen practise, public that has been formed temporarily with one objective: to reflect on the same topic that is important for them and the society.

Fancy a chat? Make your own chatrom!

During the Digital Studies course we have tried several tools for online collaboration. This one may not be as usefull as Adobe Connect, but can provide a quick and easy tool to chat... especially if not all in the group share the same IM tool.

With Chatmaker you can create a disposable chat room with a single click. All you have to do is to choose a name for the chatroom and click 'Go'. Once chat room is created you can invite others by sending them a direct link. And the best is - there's no need for registration.

STS Wiki

Googling on Technological determinism I incidentally came across an interesting theory of Social construction of technology. The article on that theory was published on the STS Wiki web site, which examines »the influence of society on science and technology, and the influence of science and technology on society”. It might be a good source of information for those interesting in that particular area.

The Social construction of technology theory was developed by STS scolars and the theory arose from technological determinism. In the context of all that has been said and written in our class on that topic it seems like something we have already been talking about, just didn’t put that name on it.

“SCOT argues that technological innovation is not the result of mythical men who introduce new ‘technologies’ and release them into ‘society,’ starting a series of (un)expected impacts; rather, technological innovation is a complex process of co-construction in which technology and society, to the degree that they could even be conceived separately of one another, negotiate the meaning of new technological artifacts, alter technology through resistance, and construct social and technological frames-of-thought, practices and action.”

Technological Determinism and Digital Media

It's been a long time since my last post and I'm comming back on track... The last online session and essays of our class were on technological determinism. The theme resulted in several interesting essays. This one is mine...

"The development of the internet and its’ extremely rapid penetration in all aspects of human life implies the idea of technological determinism - the term, which is used to refer to the common assumption that new technologies are the primary cause of major social and historical changes. Working in an industry that offers internet services and being part of persuading customers that this is everything they need in this world for their life to be more efficient, fun, successful and simple… I often find myself believing in inevitability of the new media.

But is it really so? Is persuading people that living without digital media already part of the path to technological determinism? Is submitting technology really necessary? Will technology really result in a better life?

The frequent usage of the idea of technological determinism in advertising and other texts the primary purpose of which is persuasion was also noticed by Joseph Goguen who also sets the question “why this invalid form of argument is so common and so effective?”

Reading the texts on technological/media determinism and cyberspace it was obvious the theorists do quote Marshall McLuhan's media determinism, but do not use the theory of technological determinism as the theory that explains it all. In spite of that the feeling of inevitable process of the technologically oriented changes is at this very moment stronger than ever before. As Samuel Ebersole states “the speed at which the internet is growing prevents us from turning aside. One can not deny the millions of people who do believe in the Internet – people who have faith in the technology” (in Goguen)

One of the digital media that produced significant social change are blogs, wikis and other social media with user generated content. Blogs, wikis and the rise of user generated content represented the diminishing power of traditional media, which served merely the needs of the owners with service to the public only on the second place. The public questioned journalism and the truth presented by the journalists. At the same time they were powerless for not being able to be heard in traditional media.

The rise of new forms of media was a boost to the public. Blogs and wikis made the public possible to play an active role in collecting, publishing and disseminating the information and thereby overtaking the role that was once exclusively reserved for traditional media. Blogs and wikis gave public the possibility to regain the voice and also to represent the corrective mechanism for bad journalism. Social software and blogs represent digital media, which is based on technological innovation, but would wither away unless there was the right time, space and the social moment that enabled its’ flourishing.

That we can not apply Marshall McLuhan’s famous “The medium is the message” to blogs prove different uses and reactions on them in different countries – from liberal expression of thoughts in western countries to oppression and arresting of bloggers, like recently in China where a blogger was beaten to death in attempt to take a picture.

So neither theory on technological determinism, nor social determinism can fully explain the rise of blogs and other social media. Technology, social reality and many other factors (we may never know entirely) influence each other.

What is the cause and what is the effect of the technological development discusses Raymond Williams (Williams, 1974) He highly criticized the technological determinist school of thought and argued against it throughout the book. He argues that technology can not be isolated from the surrounding political, cultural and economic environment.“For if the medium is the cause, all other causes, all that men see as history, are at once reduced to the effects. What are elsewhere seen as effect, are excluded as irrelevant by comparison with the direct physiological effects of media as such.” He emphasizes the importance of the question whether it is “… reasonable to describe any technology as a cause, and in what relations with other kind of causes.” He continues: “If the technology is a cause, we can at best modify or seek to control its effects. Or if technology, as used, is an effect, to what other kinds of cause and other kinds of action, should we refer and relate our experience of its uses?”

Technology is never just technical but is a combination of what is possible in a time and what is desirable in a certain socio-historic context. Because we have become accustomed to live with and inside techno-social systems, we tend to forget that they are man-made and contingent. Because they have shaped our milieu for such a long time, we see them as a sort of second nature.So do we take part in blogs, wikis, social media for technological or social reasons? That brings us back to the question on advertising or to reformulate – can we artificially create social environment for our technological innovation? Can social environment also be a kind of technological innovation? According to Langdon Winner (in Ebersole) “those who had the power to introduce a new technology, also had the power to create a consumer class to use the technology, with new practices, relationships, and identities supplanting the old." Later he wrote, "those who had the wherewithal to implement new technologies often molded society to match the needs of emerging technologies and organizations."

Resources
Joseph Goguen,Media determinism in Cyberspace http://www.regent.edu/acad/schcom/rojc/mdic/md.html

Daniel Chandler, Technological or Media Determinism. Available at: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/tecdet/tecdet.html

Basic definitions, Regent University,
http://www.regent.edu/acad/schcom/rojc/mdic/define.html

Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx, eds., Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994. Reviewed by Brian Martin, Technological Determinism Revisited; http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/96BRmetascience.html

Langdon Winner, Technology today: utopia or dystopia? - Technology and the Rest of Culture
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2267/is_n3_v64/ai_19952021/pg_1

Williams, Raymond (1975): Television: Technology and Cultural Form. London: Routlege