New.Journalism.Review

Times Higher reports on the introduction of bar code readers to take registers at Derby University.
http://ping.fm/LowmR

Despite its problems, anything that can automate basic administration must be welcomed. Filling in registers of 100 students manually each week is the equivalent of doing the dishes by hand, when you could use a lovely Bosch dishwasher instead.   

Lecturers already undertake crippling amounts of non-academic / 'house-keeping' work. Each year more hurdles are put in the way which prevents them from doing what they are paid to do – i.e researching, writing and teaching. From a human resources perspective (or, indeed, any perspective) filling in registers manually is a total waste of time and money. 

The government now requires that academics have to take registers to keep tabs on those pesky overseas students (the assumption is that overseas students are all secretly plotting ways to stay in the country, rather than writing assignments).

I don't agree that lecturers should be asked to carry out what amounts to UK border control checks. If I have to do this, at least allow me to wear a nice blue uniform, with a hat and have some shiny metal handcuffs. But as it's now the law, let's at least do it vaguely efficiently.

In an analysis of how UK websites are embedding participation and collaboration, I found the following academic texts useful.

If you are one of my students, you may well have the pleasure of reading some of these articles. 

Most of the journal articles can be found on Google Scholar or the usual databases. The ones highlighted focus on UK developments……..

22 Journal Articles:

Bardoel, J. (1996). Beyond journalism: A
profession between information society and civil society. European Journal
of Communication, 11(3), 283.

Bennett, W. (2003). Communicating global
activism. Information, Communication & Society, 6(2), 143-168.

Deuze, M. (2003). The web and its
journalisms: Considering the consequences of different types of newsmedia
online. New Media & Society, 5(2), 203.

Deuze, M. (2005). What is journalism?:
Professional identity and ideology of journalists reconsidered. Journalism,
6(4), 442.

Dutton, W. and Helpser, E. (2007). Oxford
internet survey: The internet in Britain. Oxford: OxIS.

Helsper, E.
(2008). Digital inclusion: An analysis of social disadvantage and the
information society. London: Department for Communities and Local
Government,

Hermida, A., & Thurman, N. (2007).
Comments please: How the british news media are struggling with user-generated
content. 8th International Symposium on Online Journalism. Austin:
University of Texas.

Hermida, A., & Thurman, N. (2008). A
Clash of Cultures. Journalism Practice, 2(3), 343-356.

Marchi, R. M. (2005). Reframing the runway: A
case study of the impact of community organizing on news and politics.
Journalism, 6(4), 465.

Lasica, J. D. (2003). Blogs and journalism
need each other. Nieman Reports, 57(3), 70-74.

Lasica, J. D. (2003). What is participatory
journalism. Online Journalism Review, 7, 2003.

Nguyen, A. (2006). Journalism in the wake of
participatory publishing. Australian Journalism Review, 28(1), 143–155.

NUJ Commission on Multi-Media Working.
(2007). Shaping the future. London: NUJ. 

Park, H. W. (2003). Hyperlink network
analysis: A new method for the study of social structure on the web.
Connections, 25(1), 49-61. Petersen, S. M. (2008). Loser generated
content: From participation to exploitation. First Monday, 13(3)

Pavlik, J., Morgan, G., & Henderson, B.
(2000). Information technology: Implications for the future of journalism and
mass communication education. Report of the Subcommittee on Educational
Technology Prepared for AEJMC Taskforce on Journalism and Mass Communication
Educator at the Millennium,

Quiggin, J. (2006). Blogs, wikis and creative
innovation. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 9(4), 481.

Schultz, T. (2000). Mass media and the
concept of interactivity: An exploratory study of online forums and reader
email. Media, Culture & Society, 22(2), 205.

Singer, J. B. (1997). Still guarding the
gate?: The newspaper journalist's role in an on-line world. Convergence, 3(1),
72.

Singer, J. B. (2003). Who are these guys?:
The online challenge to the notion of journalistic professionalism.
Journalism, 4(2), 139.

Snyder, H., & Rosenbaum, H. (1999). Can
search engines be used as tools for web-link analysis? A critical view.
Journal of Documentation, 55, 375-384.

Thurman, N. (2008). Forums for citizen
journalists? adoption of user generated content initiatives by online news
media. New Media and Society, 10(1), 139.

Wallsten, K. (2005). Political blogs and the
bloggers who blog them: Is the political blogosphere and echo chamber. American
Political Science Association’s Annual Meeting. Washington, DC September, 1-4.

20 Books:

Allan, S.
(2006). Online news: Journalism and the internet. Maidenhead: Open
University Press.

Axford, B.,(2001), New media and politics.
London: SAGE.

Bauer, M. W., & Gaskell, G. (2000), Qualitative
researching with text, image and sound : A practical handbook. London:
SAGE. 

Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks
: How social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven, Conn. ;
London: Yale University Press.

Burnett, R. (2003) Web theory : An
introduction. London: Routledge.

Castells, M. (2000). The rise of the
network society Blackwell Pub.

Castells, M. (2001). The internet galaxy :
Reflections on internet, business, and society. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

Curran J., Morley D. (2006.), Media &
cultural theory. London: Routledge.

Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the
oppressed (New rev. 20th-Anniversary ed.). New York: Continuum.

Friend, C. (2007), Online journalism
ethics : Traditions and transitions. Armonk, N.Y. ; London: M.E. Sharpe.

Gillmor, D. (2004). We the media :
Grassroots journalism by the people, for the people. Beijing ; Farnham:
O'Reilly

Jones, S. (1999). Doing internet research:
Critical issues and methods for examining the net. Thousand Oaks, Calif. ;
London: Sage Publications.

Keeble, R. (2005). Print journalism : A
critical introduction. London: Routledge.

Kline, D. (2005), Blog! : How the newest
media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture. New York: CDS
Books.

Kovach, B. (2003), The elements of
journalism : Bill kovach & tom rosenstiel. London: Atlantic Books.

McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media :
The extensions of man. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Rheingold, H,
(1994)
The virtual community: finding connection in a computerized world, Secker &
Warburg, London

Salwen, M. B.(2005). Online news and the
public. Mahwah, N.J. ; London: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody :
The power of organizing without organizations. New York: Penguin Press.

Tapscott, D. (2007). In W (Ed.), Wikinomics
: How mass collaboration changes everything. London: Atlantic Books.

Six LINKS
 

Anon. (2005). Bill gates: Free culture
advocates = commies. Retrieved 18 Aug, 2009, from http://boingboing.net/2005/01/05/bill_gates_free_cult.html

Bowman, S., & Willis, C. (2004). We
media: How audiences are shaping the future of news and information. At Http://www.Hypergene.net/wemedia/, Accessed, 1

Bruns, A. (2007). Habermas and/against the
internet. Retrieved Aug, 2009, from http://snurb.info/node/621

Economist,The (2006), Among The Audience, Retrieved 1 Sept 2009, from
http://www.economist.com/surveys/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=6794156

. Johnson, S. (2009). Are we on track for a
golden age of serious journalism? Retrieved 15 Aug, 2009, from http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2009/05/areweontrackforagoldenageofseriousjournalism/

Kelly, K. (2009). The new socialism:
Global collectivist society is coming online. Retrieved 15 August, 2009,
from http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_newsocialism

Dave Lee, at UKPG website, has been asking – Who’s using Dreamweaver? The debate kicked off (again), after Khoi Vinh, design director of NYTimes.com explained how he went about creating NY Times.

A dream candidate:

He came up ‘wishlist’ when interviewing candidates [See also coverage on Mindy's blog].

Ideally, recruits would have:

XHTML
CSS,
JavaScript
Flash;
a commercially viable comfort level
with database and application programming;
and “last but not least sound
news values”.

Vinh wanted to know who was teaching this kind of stuff? I can’t talk about the entire world (!), but in the UK I only know of  -  City University’s MA Electronic Publishing. This highly-rated MA is delivered jointly by City’s Department of Information Science and the Department of Journalism and may well come close.

Most journalism undergrad are not covering programming or how to code because they come out of arts faculties. If this is what Vinh requires then he better get used to teaching computer science grads ‘sound news values’.

Ban Dreamweaver. Teach open source [sorry Adobe]

But Dave Lee makes an important point: nobody is talking about Dreamweaver these days!   

It is clear that some students think: online journalism = creating websites = Dreamweaver. Also, some educators believe that just because Dreamweaver is installed on all the machines (part of CS)  = we should teach it. Whilst learning Dreamweaver is surely useful in life, so is learning how to bake lasagna. And you can do both at the nearest adult education college (presumably not in the same class).

One of the few rational reasons for teaching Dreamweaver is…well, there’s something to teach! People get worried in HE when they feel a sector is changing too rapidly. The argument is that content management systems are a) expensive b) complicated and c) change all the time. Universities seek industry standard software – like InDesign in magazine production and FCP or Avid in broadcast.

But this is missing the point. You can teach a lot of important transferable skills in online journalism via a class website and blog, created in something open source -  like WordPress or Joomla! It doesn’t have to cost the earth [bad luck Adobe].

Why am I so angry? It’s because contact time is SO limited. If you spend two hours a week for 13 weeks messing around with Dreamweaver, students will end up with a pretty-looking static website. But what about:

how journalists should handle user-generated material?
interactivity?
SEO?, Tags, RSS?, analytics?
AdWords? / online marketing?
Web 2.0?
social media and community?
…………..and, on, and on…

Student journalists should also be engaging with the local community online. Sure, this type of thing presents challenges to teaching methods and assessment. But teaching Dreamweaver is simply a cop-out, unless, of course, it’s a web design unit you teach.