Issue No. 7 (September 2003) — New Media Technologies
abstracts
This paper examines key discussions occurring in relation to three issues currently affecting the news media both globally and locally. They are: an apparent disconnection between the media and their publics; declines in circulation and readership; and the increasing role and influence of new technologies on news media. These issues are considered in the global context and applied at the local level through an examination of their impact on, and consequences for, regional newspapers in Queensland. The study reviews the websites of Queensland regional newspapers and suggests methods by which these publications might use the web to address the issues they face. In particular, the paper focuses on ways of connecting regional newspaper readers, especially geographically disperse publics, with each other, regional journalists and newspapers.
Key terms: Web, regional newspapers, technology, disconnections, public, regional journalists.
During the past two years, weblogs have come to the attention of the public via mass media as a rhetorical form between private and public. The ease with which weblogs are created and maintained extends the Internet’s potential for democraticised access; recent news events in the US, specifically the brief scandal surrounding US Senator Lott and the war against Iraq, have provided a sense of weblogs’ capability to influence discussion of events in a virtual public sphere. However, the large numbers and openly ideological quality of weblogs tend to limit their audiences to those who agree with their points of view, keeping writers and readers in bubble-like isolation from opposing perspectives.
Key terms: Weblogs, warblogs, public sphere, internet, news, discourse, opinion.
This paper discusses the argument that news has an important “surveillance function” that allows people to monitor the environment for both threats and events of interest in the context of the widespread and increasing use of mobile communications technology (MCT). It also discusses some of the issues that will arise for the production of news and information in relation to the use of MCT.
Key terms: mobile communication technology, surveillance, news, media, telepresence, mobile privatisation.
This article considers the figure of the new global reporter and her/his engagement with new media technologies. Through a discussion of the Urban Jungle Pack and the working environment and culture of Bloomberg financial news reporters, the article argues that while the work of contemporary reporters is partly defined by the uses of new technologies, it more fundamentally involves the production of a journalistic self. There is, then, an emphasis in this paper on the human figure of the reporter and an understanding that the job of reporting involves the manufacture of contexts, or fields of proof, where personal and professional skills work together with technological validation.
Key terms: Reporters, new technologies, urban Jungle Pack, Bloomberg, reporting practices.
This paper discusses the transformation of the learning/teaching culture in a tertiary education environment brought about by the evolution and application of digital communication technology. In examining how technological development has altered the way in which study materials are delivered to, and accessed by students this paper outlines changes observed in student attitudes to the tertiary learning experience over a ten-year period at a regional university.
The paper argues that an intensely private and absorbing multimedia world has emerged in which many contemporary university students – acculturated as they are to an electronic visual environment – acquire information in short chunks as and when they need it. It also argues for the possible use of the technology that has helped create this cultural construct – The Backyard Blitz syndrome – to transform the way in which academics interact with multimedia savvy students in order to engage their interest in studying theoretical material they often find boring and irrelevant to their needs.
Key terms: Higher education, teaching culture, digital communication technology, online learning, regional university, student engagement.