Wednesday 28 October 2009

Digital change in newsrooms too slow

Heartening news - journalists are not Luddites when it comes to going digital in the newsroom. According to a report, Life Beyond Print, carried out by researchers at North Western university (and discussed by Jeremy Porter on his Journalistics blog), nearly half of the 3,800 US journalists surveyed thought change was too slow in their newrooms. Only 6 per cent yearned for a return to print only. And interestingly, older journalists are just as keen as younger ones. So much for my research hypothesis that it was the older generation holding back and the young who were the "early adopters".

In fact, the generational hypothesis is looking a bit simplistic, even before I start my field work. I only have to look at my MA Journalism students in my multi-media reporting class to realise that some of the more mature students are sophisticated bloggers and tweeters and can work wonders with video, while some of the younger students are much more hesitant. Although they all use Facebook, unlike me. Maybe I'd better start.

1 comment:

  1. tbh I think that it does take time to get to used to all the different technology available, particularly as it's constantly changing, new things are coming out, old software is getting updated etc. etc. It just takes an awful lot of time in practice, although it may look easy as 1,2,3, we all know that web technology can look deceptively simple, and as you so rightly pointed out, it's getting people to look at the damn thing you've put up that's the real trick. How does one attract an audience? How does one start up a dialogue? An interaction?
    Personally I'm doing my best, but the net does suck you into a big black hole of distractions and dead ends, particularly when you're not sure what it is you're trying to achieve.
    Most of my time this year has been spent TRYING to get things like twitter to work succesfully. It certainly helps that the MA environment is one where a team is deliberately nurtured from the top down. .

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