Cruising With Wireless
September 25, 2006
Hoping to escape the office while vacationing on a cruise? Not anymore, according to this story from the Chicago Tribune:
“For better or worse, your boss can reach you on your cellphone or BlackBerry even when you are vacationing on a cruise ship in the middle of the Caribbean Sea.
There’s no need for a special satellite phone or calling plan because most ships are being equipped to accommodate late-model wireless devices. When you call the boss or check in with the kids at home, the call on your cellphone will cost you less – sometimes much less -than dialing from the satellite phone in your cabin.”
Journalists & Technology
September 20, 2006
The Online News Association (ONA) is conducting a survey on digital media use by journalists. If you are a working journalist and you have have 5 minutes, this might be worth taking and passing along.
Here’s the link: http://journalist.org/2006conference/archives/000575.php
#3: Adding Value
September 19, 2006
When I was asked to speak to an assembly of Hartford Courant summer interns recently about online journalism, I started my presentation with a question:
“Show of hands: How many of you subscribe to a daily newspaper?”
Not one hand went up. A second or two passed before a young woman spoke up. “I read the news online,” she said, matter-of-factly. Others nodded their heads in agreement.
Hardly a shocking revelation. Even college students who aim to become newspaper reporters and photographers do not subscribe to a daily newspaper. Why? Because they don’t have to. For these twenty-somethings and many others, the Internet has become the medium of choice for exchanging and consuming information, including news.
The web is easily accessible. Cost is cheap. The volume of news and information is unparalled. And the interactive elements of the web attract more and more users by reducing the distance between communicator and reader.
The 2001 essay, “Traditional News Media Online: An Examination of Added Values” by Nicholas W. Jankowski and Martine van Selm, discusses how electronic media are taking over the traditional functions of printed newspapers.
The traditional function of newspapers in society is to provide a forum for discussion and debate on issues of public concern, Jankowski and van Selm noted. Online news outlets are successfully luring readers to the electronic side with interactive widgets – a cache of “added values” that makes communication and participation easier.
The added values include:
But Jankowski and van Selm’s 2001 study also concluded that many online news outlets are not using these “added values” to their full potential.
Their conclusion still holds true today. While talking with the Courant’s journalists-in-training this summer, I realized that none of them regarded the web as priority when writing and reporting their stories. These journalists of the future did not attempt to provide any “added value” elements with their print stories. Although these young people personally consumed their news solely online, the web was an afterthought, if thought of at all, while they worked as professional journalists.
This may be a reflection of the priorities of the newspaper’s editors, or the students’ college professors, or the rigidity of journalism’s practices in general.
The stubborness of the industry to fully embrace the web as another legitimate outlet for publication has made it difficult to renegotiate the standards of daily journalism. This has proved to be especially frustrating to me, a former print journalist, now working as a senior online producer for the newspaper.
By making added value elements a priority online, “journalists will do a better job, content will increase and improve, readers will become better informed and active in their news processing habits,” Jankowski and van Selm observed.
Another study, conducted in 1997 by Sheizaf Rafaeli and Fay Sudweeks, surmised that if an online information site had little interactivity, it was not likely to garner a stable audience.
“Individuals may come, but they will not tarry. While less interactive groups may be or even grow, they may be doomed to a rotating-door, shifting existence. In such groups there could be many who stop to visit, but few would be “netted” to stay because the content offerings are reactive at best. Interactive groups are more likely to sustain their memberships, and yield other desired outcomes, such as symmetry in contributions, creativity and productivity, agreement, humor, and sense of belonging.”
Public participation in the gathering, consumption and discussion of news content online is also a boon for democracy. General interest online news sites can evolve into conversation leaders by providing citizens with range of material about important issues, and giving them a forum for debate. Online news sites can utilize added value elements to engage the public more than ever.
“People should be exposed to materials they would not have chosen in advance,” wrote Cass R. Sunstein in the 2004 essay, “Democracy and Filtering.” “Unanticipated encounters, involving topics and points of view we have not sought out and perhaps find irritating are central to democracy and even to freedom itself.”
Increased citizen engagement is an ideal to aspire to, both for the future of the traditional news media and the future of free society.
I can’t say it enough. News organizations need to consistently use the tools and technologies of interactive communication to make the news gathering and delivery process more transparent, responsive and inclusive. Because if we don’t, someone else will.
Citations:
My So-Called Second Life
September 19, 2006
So I’m in Second Life, wandering around. Second Life is a 3-D digital world imagined and created by its users. My avatar (the character I inhabit while inside this online world – think ‘Matrix’) looks a bit like me, except the hair is a lot bigger and the body a lot fitter. I must’ve spent an hour or more building and adjusting my avatar… oh vanity.
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing. Striking up a conversation with someone seems a little risky to me at this point. I don’t want to get stuck talking to a perv or wacko. I am amused, however, by the avatar running around my area who looks like a Jawa from Star Wars. I think it’s got a light saber…. and rollerblades…
What’s with all the sound effects? Laughing babies, audio snippets from ‘Pulp Fiction,’ ‘Dirty Harry,’ ‘Beavis & Butthead,’ ‘South Park,’ ‘The Simpsons.’ Lots of expletives, too.
With no money to do anything in Second Life, I kind of feel like I’m back in junior high, hanging out at the mall. Can’t drive, can’t drink, can’t shop, can’t work. I’m just wasting time hanging around, walking, window shopping and watching people. I tried camping out in a chair to make some Second life money, but after nearly an hour, I stil had $0.
My ’so-called’ second life is kinda lame.
But that’s probably a good thing since I have more than enough tasks to accomplish in the real world right now…
That’s Rude, Dude
September 19, 2006
A story in the Hartford Courant’s Life section today highlights some people’s shortage of manners when using mobile communications technology.
“It’s the business colleague who keeps her eyes on her BlackBerry during an executive meeting. It’s the twentysomething who spends more time in the glow of his cellphone texting than in the barside conversation with his friends.”
Read more of “Press T For Tactless”
Growing up in the “real” world
September 18, 2006
My younger brother, Matt, forwarded me this message today. Although I generally hate it when my Inbox gets filled with forwarded drivel, I thought the text of this email related nicely to our discussion last week about how people meet, make friends and “date” today, amid our brave new world of communications technology.
“This is dedicated to those born between 1930-1979:
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.
Then we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren’t overweight because…
We were always outside playing!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day.
And we were O.K.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD’s, no surround sound, CD’s or Ipods, no cell phones, no personal computers , no Internet or chat rooms…….
We had friends and we made friends and we went outside and found them!”
The Mystery Is Gone
September 14, 2006
Mobile phones and caller ID. The technology has changed us. The following is an excerpt from a recent story by the Washington Post:
“Back when phones were attached to the wall, there was a mystery to their rings. People could not be blocked nor deleted. Phones were simple. No games. You dialed the number. If somebody was there, they answered. If they were not, the phone rang until you decided to hang up.
There was no call screening, no Caller ID. People were not banished with a DELETE button.
Now society brings with it the constant ringing of phones, the beeping of computers, the robotic voices saying who is behind the ring. Communication has become sanitized and personal relationships have become clinical. You are in or you are out, based upon whether they like you.”
#2: Going Mobile
September 12, 2006
The first time I traveled to Philippines to visit my maternal grandparents, I was astounded to learn that they didn’t have a telephone in their home. It was 1989, and there was only one telephone in their entire town of Burauen, Leyte.
To communicate with my grandparents, my mother in Connecticut had to either write them a letter, or, call the lone telephone in the village and leave a message that she would be calling back at a specified time. The owner of the telephone would then have someone walk, bike or drive to my grandparents’ house to fetch them so they would be present for the call when it came in.
A few years and many infrastructure improvements later, my grandparents eventually got their own phone line and their own phone number.
Today, the Philippines is widely known as the world’s text-messaging capital. It seems like everyone there has a mobile phone. Wireless devices are cheaper than land lines. And most people, especially young people, use the cell phone for text messaging, because it’s costs less than making a call.
The Philippines, a country of 85 million people, has only 2 million Internet users and 3 million people with land-line telephones, states the August 2006 Washington Post article, “Going Mobile: Text Messages Guide Filipino Protesters.” “But there are more than 30 million cell phone subscribers here, according to government statistics, more than double the figure in 2002.”
The rise of mobile and text-based communications technology in the Philippines is just one example of how computer-mediated communication devices have changed how society operates.
Barry Wellman, in his essay “Community: From Neighborhood to Network” puts forth the idea that neighborhoods of human beings living and working next to each other in the physical sense no longer defines “a community.”
“The proliferation of computer-supported social networks has afforded changes in the ways that people use community,” Wellman argues. “Instead of isolated and tightly bounded groups, social circles are partial, permeable, and transitory. “
With technology in hand, communities of human beings can be linked to each other wherever they are.
“Protests [in the Philippines] once publicized on coffeehouse bulletin boards are now organized entirely through text-messaging networks that can reach vast numbers of people in a matter of minutes,” the Washington Post article states. “When President Joseph Estrada was forced from office in 2001, he bitterly complained that the popular uprising against him was a “coup de text.”
When my parents travel to the Philippines for extended periods, I communicate with them, almost exclusively, using text-messaging. It really is cheaper than calling them directly. And we’ve all gotten pretty good at typing quickly on the tiny keypad, although not nearly as fast as the ‘Thumb Tribe’ in Tokyo, as discussed by Howard Rheingold in his essay, “Shibuya Epiphany.”
Those Japanese youths can compose messages with their thumbs and not even look at the keypad, Rheingold discovered. Wow.
Computer-mediated communication tools - mobile phones, PDAs, email - are able to complement face-to-face contact by giving people more than one way to connect to each other, Wellman observed. This increases “the frequency and intensity of the overall contact by linking people wherever they are.”
I agree, and I’m grateful for the technology because I can talk to my parents in the Philippines as easily now as I do when they are in Connecticut.
“Most people communicate with their friends, relatives, neighbors and work colleagues by any means available, online and offline. The stronger the tie, the more media used,” Wellman concluded. “The person has become the portal, with each person operating a unique personal community network.”
However, the ease of communicating with our own “communities” via wireless devices has led to some negative residual effects.
How many of us have been witnesses to, or unknowingly guilty of, loud, private phone conversations in shared spaces?
Because people can take the mobile phone or PDA with them wherever they go, people tend to use it whenever, regardless of their surroundings. So many shared spaces – the locations that used to foster community with face-to-face communication – have suffered.
A 2005 CNN.com article, “Where are your wireless manners?” examined how “Cell Yell” has deteriorated public spaces.
In the CNN piece, Lew Friedland, a communications professor, called the lack of manners a kind of unconscious rudeness, “as many people are not aware of what they’re doing or the others around them.”
“It takes what was a public common space and starts to parcel it out and divide it up into small private space,” Friedland said.
According to Rheingold’s essay, Japanese youths who felt they did not have any private spaces within their small crowded homes, turned to mobile technology to hold text conversations with their friends that couldn’t be overheard by the adults.
At least sending text messages is silent. In the United States, where people have plenty of space, there is still inappropriate use of mobile, wireless technology. There are quite a few business people I know who can’t stop checking their BlackBerry devices during meetings, and even during face-to-face conversations with others.
Honore Ervin, co-author of “The Etiquette Grrls: Things You Need to Be Told” agreed. In the CNN article, Ervin says, “The more gadgets there are, the worse things seem to get. People get really wrapped up in their little technological world, and they forget that there are other people out there.”
Let’s face it. Technology-enhanced social spaces are the norm today. But just because mobile communication devices allow people to be connected continuously with their virtual social group, it shouldn’t, as Rheingold concludes, “isolate them from co-present others in the public space.”
I’m hopeful that the computer-mediated communication habits of modern society will evolve with the technology and strike a balance, so we can all keep in touch with our friends and family wherever they are, and be good neighbors to the people actually standing next to us.
Citations:
Another reason to move to Paradise
September 12, 2006
From an article on the national news wires:
“Want to live longer? A new study suggests that where and how you live may be stronger predictors of longevity than access to health insurance or higher income.”
Among states, Hawaiians are living longest, around 80 for men and women, followed by California, Connecticut, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington. The average life expectancy in these states is 78.”
Here’s the full story.
It’s no surprise to me that Hawaiians live the longest. They get to live in the most beautiful place on earth.
This is a picture that my brother, Kevin Shanahan, took in June 2006. It is Kauai’s North Shore at sunset.
I Feel Like A Proud Parent
September 12, 2006
The New England Associated Press News Executives Association (NEAPNEA) Web Site contest winners were announced today.
For 2006 best entertainment site, the winner is:
www.ctnow.com – The Hartford Courant
Detail from the judges’ comments:
“Hartford may not be the hottest entertainment town in the country, but judging from CTNow.com, it’s a lot closer than many might think. This is a complete, easy to use and well thought out entertainment site. It appeals to users of all ages, featuring a heavy dose of restaurant reviews, club listings, museum information and movie picks. There are easy to use ratings, “best of” features, concert calendars, columnist and user blogs, multimedia and — very prominently — a helpful feature labeled “What Can I Do Tonight?” My guess is that if something is happening in and around Hartford, this would be the first and best place to find it.”
Here’s a list of all the winners…
YAY!
Remembering 9/11
September 11, 2006
Shortly after the sad and terrifying events of September 11, 2001, I discovered this website - hereisnewyork.org
Here Is New York is an archive, an oral history, an online memorial, a community of contributors, a “democracy of photographs.”
Another good website of audio oral histories about 9/11 is storycorps.net. Hear people speak about the events in their own words, in their own voices …
Unfiltered humanity.
Dubious or Reliable?
September 11, 2006
Interesting story today on NPR’s Morning Edition about Wikipedia.
”Wikipedia is the ever-evolving work of hundreds-of-thousands of volunteer writers and editors who range from high school students to academic scholars. This leaves the online encyclopedia open to criticism and ridicule. That doesn’t seem to stop people from using the site as a source for knowledge.”
After hearing the NPR story, the basic idea of Wikipedia, already mentioned by Ed in his blog, makes me think that:
If society generally distrusts “modeling done by a single mind,” than do people also distrust modeling done by too many minds?
