Online Journalism 1 - Weblogs and Journalism

Homework - write me a comment piece

For the homework this week, I want you to write a short opinion piece on your blog, using some of the ideas we talk about in the session. You can write about anything you like. But if you're short of an idea, why not read 'Say Everything', by Emily Nussbaum.

This appeared in New York Magazine around a year ago. It argues that, thanks to MySpace and the like, we're now seeing the biggest generation gap since the age of rock and roll. Her point is that old folks don't get why young people want to share so much of their lives online. What do you think of the piece? Is she right?

Clearly things have moved on since she wrote it. We've seen the dominance of Facebook, which has started to be criticised for what it does with the data its users put in the site. You could bring that into your piece. But if you choose to write about this, try to respond to Emily Nussbaum's central argument - comment on it and make sure you use links and stuff elsewhere online to back up your point of view.

Music and the net

The net and related interactive media technologies (like the MP3 players and peer to peer file sharing) have changed the way the music business operates. New media allows artists to interact more directly with fans. Fans can play a more active role, sharing music, remixing it, promoting it.

These new connections threaten the old distribution structures. They take away control from the record companies - they also argue that the net takes away income. Interactive media also changes the role played by music journalists and critics. Once they were gatekeepers - music had to flow through them to reach the public. Now musicians can go direct to the audience - some have argued that this means they don't need music journalists any more. Is that true? Might there be an even bigger role for music journalists online - digging through the mass of material, guiding people to the good stuff, putting things in context...

I want us to think about all this over the next couple of weeks. The things going on in the music business are also happening elsewhere and the debates about the music journalist's changing role are a way of getting into larger discussions about the effect of blogging on the mainstream media.

So here's a few stories to look at:

• The Guardian on Sandi Thom - and whether she was really the grassroots net phenomenon she claimed. If you don't know who she was, try the Wikipedia entry
• The Guardian again - on how the net is helping people to find music in new ways and also on whether the net is allowing niche music to thrive, as some claim.
• Who is downloading most music online? Download dads, apparently
• Observer net columnist John Naughton on the net and record company stupidity
• Finally - one for Michael - here's our old friend Henry Jenkins (and one of his post-grad students) on Soulja Boy and how he used the net and his fans to build buzz and get a record deal - parts one and two

New York Magazine on online video

Here's a good piece to look at, connected to our ongoing investigation of YouTube (and the net) as a new kind of media channel. Last November, New York Magazine ran an interesting piece called 'The Online Star System'. It's basically about the way a new star system is emerging online, via online video sharing sites like YouTube. It's a new star system that mixes professionals who are already part of the established media biz, new talent and ordinary people who've uploaded stuff that catches on. The piece is a good multi-part round up covering some of the more interesting developments in online video - it's worth a click or two.

Today's session

Today we're going to be picking up on the discussion we started last week about reviewing. I'm going to hand out some notes on reviewing and talk a bit about reviewing on blogs. We'll also look at some of the YouTube clips you picked to review and go back to those notes by Henry Jenkins about the 'New Media Landscape'.

Then we're going to look at writing comment and opinion. I'm going to go over some general ideas about writing comment then we're going to look at some blog posts pulled from '2005: Blogged', a collection of the best blog posts from that year, edited by Tim Worstall. Incidentally, it's in the library, along with 'The Blog Digest 2007', which was edited by Justin McKeating. Both are definitely worth a look. Anyway, the aim will be to see how different comment/opinion on blogs is from the stuff you read in print. 

After that, if there's time, we'll look at some recent stories about the way the net and new media are changing the music business.