Can I Get a What What?: Journalists cope with being cool

Brian Carroll's essay, Culture Clash, focuses on the struggle of "old media" journalists to adopt and adapt to the Age of the Blog. While arguing against a dichotomous relationship between the two, Carroll emphasizes the need of traditional journalism to adapt to not only the method of blogging, but also the unique demands of its audience.

Looking at both the positive and negative social consequences of blogging from a journalistic perspective, Carroll provides a couple of interesting examples of journalists and executives practicing both personal and professional blogging. In one of these examples, he makes use of a case from The Virginian Pilot newspaper, which used blogging to provide live coverage of the sniper trial of John Allen Muhammad since TV and radio coverage had been banned by the judge. The blog was wildly successful. Carroll points out several notable features of this case study in regards to the effects of blogging, including:

* The blogger enjoyed the experience, because it brought his role in the community in which he was participating to the fore.
* Despite not having the same internal review process as a regular news article, blogging still allowed for an important revision process that also contributed to the relationships between members of the blog community. The author received instant feedback regarding errors, etc. that he instantly posted to the blog as corrections.
* Readers indicated they not only were they more pleased with this type of experience than with simply reading a newspaper article, they found it to also be more accurate reporting

Carroll was unable to address certain key concerns in this article, including how newspapers might use new media such as blogs to their financial advantage. While it may not have been "within the scope" of his essay, I think the issue of profit is necessary to address if one's argument is directed at a business industry, especially a struggling one like print newspaper.

In the comment section of the chapt-o-blog, Dennis G. Jerz notes that it might be more useful to deal with the issue from a "revolutionary" perspective rather than a democratic one. We have beaten around both those bushes in class, and I think that the case can be made (or should at least be explored in an article like this) that the convergence of these media might be a serious threat to businesses (like newspapers, but also like the RIAA, book publishers and the pro-new media corporations like Google as well) because of its inherent tendency to, as Carroll puts it "encourage [and reward] the values of the communal ethos." Not only is there limited economic incentive, but the authority of institutions can be entirely (?) undermined in the blogosphere, where the audience and authors have not only an instantly amplified voice, but also more say in the norms and practices of the group. In regards to journalism, which in an ideal world is motivated by information more than money, an entire heirarchy of practices, from information gathering, to writing and editing, to dissemination, is wiped out by blogging.

We have seen this battle before with Jenkins and television examples such as Lost, American Idol and Survivor, and have discussed the limitations of new media relationships between producers and audiences, which seems to come back to the threat the audience poses to the institution's authority and ego as the mastermind. If the dynamics of new media and old media are to be qualified as a "culture clash," as Carroll's title suggests, although I understand the motivation to seek an amicable resolution, I question the merit of avoiding dichotomy entirely. It seems as though new media have a lot to offer our culture, and while they are not without their drawbacks, it seems unfair to let them drown under the weight of bloated corporate egos rather than take the chance to discover the value and meaning these relationships can really have.