Journalism Blog at University of Houston
Faculty member Michael Berryhill started a new and very useful UH Journalism Blog. I worked with him this semester as he navigated through the blogging world. He ventured into blogging by creating a blog and also requiring his students to create blogs. Students posted writing assignments/stories to their own blogs throughout the semester and ended with an e-portfolio.
This new blog includes interesting posts and links to some of his student’s stories. Read more to find out what our UH students are writing and learning!
Will Goverment Bailout Newspapers?
Listen to this story from NPR’s Morning Edition, titled “Can Washington Help Ailing Newspaper Industry?”
“Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are looking for ways to shore up the struggling newspaper industry. Bills have been introduced that would allow newspapers to operate as tax-exempt non-profits and loosen anti-trust laws. Senator John Kerry held a hearing recently to come up with answers.”
We should be very interested in what steps Washington and the Industry make, this is a very real and controversial issue! Sounds like a potential interesting opinion piece or student research paper topic!
The 21st Century Student – YouTube Video
Watch this 5 min video on the 21st Century Connected Student.
Student’s: If you are already on this path, more power to you. Continue to share your knowledge.
Faculty: You have the power to enable students to connect and share the knowledge you teach!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwM4ieFOotA
The inevitable question…how long will newspapers survive?
This week, The New York Times executive editor, Bill Keller, is holding an online Q & A for readers. Inevitably, numerous readers ask the question surrounding the future of newsprint. In his response, and an interesting one at that, he provides some hope for those print lovers and gives ideas for the aspiring journalist to ponder. Here is a quick snip-it…
“First, there is a diminishing supply of quality journalism, and a growing demand. By quality journalism I mean the kind that involves experienced reporters going places, bearing witness, digging into records, developing sources, checking and double-checking, backed by editors who try to enforce high standards. I mean journalism that, however imperfect, labors hard to be trustworthy, to supply you with the information you need to be an engaged citizen. The supply of this kind of journalism is declining because it is hard, expensive, sometimes dangerous work. The traditional practitioners of this craft — mainly newspapers — have been downsizing or declaring bankruptcy. The wonderful florescence of communication ignited by the Internet contains countless voices riffing on the journalism of others but not so many that do serious reporting of their own….
There is no end of faith-based polemics on the subject of newspapers’ survival. Print is dead! Online readers must pay for content! Online readers will never pay for content! Give newspapers endowments, like universities! We should be a little suspicious of ironclad certainty. The fact is, we don’t really know yet how the behavior of readers and advertisers will evolve. We don’t really know for sure how to separate the consequences of a calamitous economic crisis from the enduring changes in behavior provoked by new technologies. I think in the next year or two, we must examine all our options with an open mind, test those that are testable, and make some hard choices. My expectation (and I remind you of the disclaimers regarding my business acumen) is that for the foreseeable future our business will continue to be a mix of print and online journalism, with the growth online offsetting the (gradual, we hope) decline of print.”
I highly encourage you to read his entire response….let me know what you think!
Online Videos and Identities
A post on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus Blog (Anthropology professor, now a YouTube star, says Web video can help people craft their identities by Jeffrey R. Young) discusses the social impacts of online videos:
Michael Wesch, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, set out to study the culture of YouTube users, and he ended up becoming a video star in the process. He and his students have been lovingly documenting how people are using their Web cams to express themselves, and his short videos about the new ways the Web is connecting people have been viewed millions of times.
But when Mr. Wesch gave a talk at the Library of Congress on Monday, one audience member essentially asked: So what? Why should anyone care about a subculture of homemade video makers, or the fact that some people watch amusing clips on the Internet instead of looking at TV? “I don’t understand how this is going to impact my life,” said the questioner, who said she’s only ever watched one YouTube video.
“It will impact politics – it will impact who gets elected this year,” said Mr. Wesch. “And I think it can be argued that Obama would not have taken the election without social media. Clinton with her machine would have just ran right over him.”
The post has an accompanying video and has generated interesting comments.
Growing Traffic for Magazine Web Sites
A recent research study indicates that more people are drawn to magazine Web sites to view their contents. From the press release:
Consumer magazine websites averaged 70.7 million unique monthly visitors* during the first quarter of 2008, it was announced today by Nina Link, President and Chief Executive Officer, Magazine Publishers of America (MPA). That marks an 11.9% increase over the same period in 2007, when 63.2 million unique visitors logged onto magazine websites. This gain reflects more than three times the rate of growth for the overall U.S. Internet audience, which rose 3.7% in the first quarter. The information is based on a MPA analysis of Nielsen Online-supplied data from 337 consumer magazine brands online.
…
“Magazine brands online are getting ‘stickier’ with web audiences, as the latest data shows,” said Ms. Link. “Publishers are increasingly employing the latest digital innovations to broaden their reach and appeal to an audience that has a clear hunger for magazine online content and communities.”
Facts about Television
The U.S. Census Bureau has made available statistics about television and the TV industry:
73.2 million
The number of households with cable television in 2006. Two-thirds of households with a TV have cable.
Source: Table 1099, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2008 <http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/08s1099.xls>1,704
The projected average number of hours an individual (12 and older) will spend watching television in 2008. That comes out to 4.7 hours of TV watching per day. In 2000, the average number of hours spent watching TV was 1,502, or 4.1 hours per day.
Source: Table 1098, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2008 <http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/08s1098.xls>$364.79
The projected average amount consumers will spend on cable and satellite TV in 2009. In 2000, the average amount was $173.58.
Source: Table 1098, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2008 <http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/08s1098.xls>
If you are looking for articles on Media Studies, the databases, Communication & Mass Media Complete and LexisNexis Academic, will be useful. For other relevant library resources, refer to the Communications database list.
Stream: Culture, Politics, Technology
Stream: Culture/Politics/Technology is a new open access communication journal:
Stream is a peer-reviewed e-journal published by the Communication Graduate Student Caucus, Simon Fraser University.
Stream provides a unique forum for emerging communication researchers in Canada. Encompassing three often-overlapping streams of culture, technology and politics, this journal challenges conceptions of these subjects with innovative interpretations of disciplinary boundaries.
Thanks to Open Access News for noting this new online journal.
For other open access Communication journals, take a look at this section of the Directory of Open Access Journal.
Internet and Consumer Choice
The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released a report, The Internet and Consumer Choice, that discusses how the Internet has become a major information source for consumers. From the report:
- The internet helps music buyers connect with artists and learn more about music, but it doesn’t strongly influence what or how they buy
- The internet is an influential source of information and options for those purchasing feature-rich items such as cell phones
- The internet is an efficiency-enhancer in searching for new housing
- Few internet users bother to rate or comment on their purchase, even for a digital good such as music
How will the findings affect the business of online advertising and marketing?
Journal of E-Media Studies
The Journal of E-Media Studies is a new open access journal:
The Journal of E-Media Studies is a blind peer-reviewed, on-line journal dedicated to the scholarly study of the history and theory of electronic media, especially Television and New Media. It is an inter-disciplinary journal, with an Editorial Board that is chiefly grounded in the methodologies of the field of Film and Television Studies. We welcome submissions across the fields and methodologies that study media and media history.
