For a course on Digital Studies with a focus on ‘News and Digital Studies’ as its focus, I wish to emphasise on the contemporary suitability of the cyberspace as a medium for news conveyance. I have chosen three textual sources – a book, a journal article and a book chapter, to go with a mainstream movie pinpointing an unethical side of media. The course is designed to specifically comprehend the digital space being the new news space along with the juxtaposition of practical benefits and ethical obstacles of the digital medium.
I. Book: Engaged Journalism – Connecting with Digitally Empowered News Audiences by Jake Batsell (2015)
The age of online networking and ease of information has forced conventional media establishments to adopt and adapt to digital methods. In Engaged Journalism, Jake Batsell shows the beneficial side for news houses in committing to the internet for news communication. The interviews and stories in the book illustrate that mass communication has evolved into a public engaging exercise rather than simply informing them about daily events. The strengthening of the feedback loop allows media to better gauge the needs and desires of their target audiences. Batsell highlights the economic potential of this form of journalism and the description of engagement methods like comment sections, social networking and news games opens a very necessary discourse on the ethical side of such ventures.
II. Article: Challenging Values: The “Good” Journalist Online by John O’Sullivan (2012)
In this article, John O’Sullivan talks about the challenges associated with the rise in online journalism praxis and offers a critical commentary on the status quo of internet as the media professional’s primary tool. O’Sullivan writes about how straightforward methods like link sharing of sources can mitigate the negative influences of other communications like PR. The author is skeptical about the initial promise of cyber journalism when it was introduced and situates this in the unfulfilled potential of comment forums and journalists themselves harbouring second thoughts over technological advents in their professions. This article is chosen for providing a counter narrative to the optimistic take on digital journalism in Jake Batsell’s Engaged Journalism.
III. Book chapter: Crowd-Powered Collaboration in Journalism Next by Mark Briggs (2009)
In this chapter of his book, Mark Briggs offers insights on the extent of public participation in the process of news making, especially on crowd sourcing of information. Relying on the premise of the inevitability of social media, Briggs writes about how reporting of news is akin to maintaining a conversation, albeit on the mass public level. Here, the ideas of engaged journalism and open- source reporting are included to identify the role of the people in news making and how this affects their lives in terms of ethics. The accuracy attained in a combined process of gathering information is also a concern for critics of digital journalism, who in turn argue that the limited number of individuals involved in news reporting at traditional media increase the objectivity of the news. This debate is better assessed in light of Briggs’ chapter.
IV. Film: Nightcrawler by Dan Gilroy (2014)
The neo-noir movie is premised upon the acts of Louis Bloom (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), a stringer who records crime footage for a local television news station. The film showcases the close link between consumer demand for sensational news stories and unethical journalism to the extent that there occurs a complete blurring of the ethical ideals in the professional’s mind. The production of such news is shown to exist in a vicious and unescapable cycle of entertainment quotient in news and the commercial output derived from it, thus making it sustainable. The film is chosen as part of the course materials to locate the individual professional and his dual role of informing as well as inflating the news. The stringer line of work is also a suitable precursor to understand the practical hurdles associated with enabling citizen journalism as a substitute for journalism proper.
