Einar Thorsen

Professor of Journalism and Communication at Bournemouth University

Publications | Conferences | Teaching | Projects

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Journalism and ‘the words of power’

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Excellent, must-read from Robert Fisk:

This isn't just about clichés – this is preposterous journalism. There is no battle between power and the media. Through language, we have become them.

[…]

this vocabulary is not adopted through political connivance. It is an infection that we all suffer from – I've used 'peace process' a few times myself, though with quotation marks which you can't use on television – but yes, it's a contagion.

And when we use these words, we become one with the power and the elites which rule our world without fear of challenge from the media.

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The Oxymoronic Citizen Journalism | paidContent:UK

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    Interesting take by Frederic Filloux:

    "Does it means public input in news should be kept at bay? Certainly not. Quite the contrary, actually. Newsrooms have a challenge on their hands, they need to get better at handling such input.

    […]

    But, to thrive, journalism requires more than a checkbook. It has to be built around a set of cultural traits that are in total contradiction to the engineering efficiencies of a search engine or an internet portal. Evidently, the modern news business requires more technology; and journalists needs the dialectics from their public. But news requires more professionalism than mere crowd-powered demagoguery. Today and, I believe, for as long as trust is to be part of the relationship with readers."

    External link

    Del.ici.us tags: analysis citizenjournalism journalism ugc blogs

Why Twitter Is the Future of News – Technology Review

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    Christopher Mims comments on a study by Kwak et al. at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, who performed a multi-part analysis of Twitter:

    "They conclude that it's a surprisingly interconnected network and an effective way to filter quality information.

    […]

    On the MSN messenger network of 180 million users, for example, the median degree of separtaion is 6. On Twitter, Kwak et al. hypothesized that because only 22.1% of links are reciprocal (that is, I follow you, and you follow me as well) the number of degrees separating users would be longer. In fact, the average path length on Twitter is 4.12.

    What's more, because 94% of the users on Twitter are fewer than five degrees of separation from one another, it's likely that the distance between any random Joe or Jane and say, Bill Gates, is even shorter on Twitter than in real life.

    […]

    Owing to the short path length between any two users, news travels fast in the tweet-o-sphere."

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    Del.ici.us tags: twitter analysis