Globalisation vs. Localisation

This week Michelle, Pippa and I presented a seminar on the topic of Globalisation vs. Localisation. I focused on the effects of globalisation and subsequent localisation on journalists. I talked about the way that new technologies (that are both a cause and effect of globalisation, commercialisation of the media and problems with reporting local news on a global scale have all affected the integrity of journalism, structure of news gathering procedures and resulted in the continuing change of journalists’ roles in society. I have two main concerns with the effects of globalisation, including the commercialisation of the media and the use of the internet by journalists. The commercialisation of the media is probably what worries me the most, with the concentration of ownership by a few major TNC's who then have the ability to choose what is on the news agenda. As Christina said in class, if we are told that we have to write a certain article in a certain way in order to make the company we work for look good, or to make an advertiser or supporter look good, are we going to say that we will quit our jobs in order to maintain the integrity of journalism? With the economy the way it is I highly doubt this will happen. It seems that in this age of globalisation it will be difficult to trust what we read in the media anymore. The other main issue that concerns me is the ease in which journalists can fall back on the media for their news stories, without accurately verifying their sources.

Who Will Pay for Journalism?

This week the topic was all about who will pay for journalism, with the increase of pay TV, podcasting, the internet and time-shift technology cutting back on revinue gained from advertising in the traditional forms of the media. According to Roy Greenslade at the Future of Journalism summit (2008)

“Popular newspapers, the mass newspapers, are dying and will die. They have no future whatsoever."

This statement demenstrates the effects new technology is having on the media industry and journalists as a result.

This question of payment for journalism was also brought up at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) convention that suggested that a solution would be to stop journalism altogether:

"Here, I believe, is the ultimate ethical question: If the American public does not want to pay for journalism -- in other words, doesn't find value in what we as journalists do -- should we simply stop doing it?"

While I believe that the new technologies including free online news and time-shift technology is affecting revinue to the more traditional media forms, I don't think that the public has ever really paid for journalism in the first place, as advertisers have always picked up the majority of the costs while the public pay a small cover price, so maybe it is time to actually start asking them to pay for it. There is argument that the public will not pay for what they can get for free, even if what they pay for will be more professional, but the state of the current economy has to be taken into account, and perhaps when (if?) this improves then the public will be more willing to pay for news.

Citizen Journalism

I missed the week 3 class unfortunately, but had the opportunity of viewing the presentation PowerPoint slides online through blackboard. I thought the slides were very good and before viewing them I hadn't thought of the extent of which we are presented with news by citizen journalists. It makes me think about the first journalism class we had in week 2 where Christina told us to realise the fact that we may not be able to get a job, especially in print journalism and how much citizen journalism may be affecting the journalist job decline. Why pay someone to write something when a citizen journalist could post the same news online, talk about it on the radio, send a camera photo of it or post bout it on a public forum for free? This could be answered by saying that we pay these "real" journalists because they are objective and report the news fairly, where these citizen journalists have no such claim. but is the reporting of "real" journalists ever really objective? Everything anyone says or writes is the product of sociological and ideological factors so can anyone ever be objective? but perhaps without the issues of ownership and control that can have an effect on the objectivity of journalists; citizen journalists are the future source of more objective news..