Richard BF

On Online Journalism Review today, the article To Their Surprise, Bloggers Are Force for Change in Big Media talks about bloggers arguably forcing change in the way big media view the blogging independants, and are beginning to take them fare more seriously as writers and/or researchers. I don’t think Mark is able to absolutely prove the article’s title however, for reasons I’ll allude to in a second, but it certainly shows the direction things are headed.

It is interesting to think that individuals are starting to affect the outcome of corporate journalism. As shown in the article, if a big media story has fictional elements masquerading as journalism, the public can have an effect on the resulting copy of the article, if not editorial content. Bloggers in particular tend to be more informed members of the public, which partially explains their tendency to spot conflicts more easily than your regular non-blogger.

So let us assume that we’re talking about all public interaction with big media, not just bloggers, and them arguably having the ability to annotate, embellish or even dare I say it control publication. If you extend the interaction further, you start to see where control and personalisation could be used to tailor big media stories with your own lense or filter.

For example, here’s a news story about how a local school board couldn’t agree on whether Intelligent Design (the new 2nd millenium friendly non-religious compliant buzzword for “creationism”) should be taught side by side with evolution. Putting on my Richard BF filter, I’m interested in investigating where the idea came from that the school board should even be considering it, and what laws and constitutional rights are being used to justify or fight the decision. The Mr Local Smith filter may be more interested in the school board itself, who the board members are, and which community groups are actively participating in the issue at a local level. The Senator Joe Bloe filter might be more interested in whether other schools in the area are considering similar changes, who they are, what the constitutional and federal education laws are that may be affected by it and whether there are any precedents or related cases in this or other states.

To provide all this information in a single story would be pointless, most people would turn off after a few paragraphs, except for hardcore researchers. If Mrs Soccer Mum was worried about what her kids might be taught in school, she’d never see the story or be able to see the three or four paragraphs that she’s interested in, presented in the same way she expects all her news stories to be presented. The Mrs Soccer Mum filter could be a simple local rag pocket magazine picked up at the local supermarket.

Does this sound a little like controlling the publishing pipeline?

Imagine if when I viewed a news story, it popped up a side list of related stories, categories by depth of reporting/research as well as by subject, and a visual virtual web of research about the story. I can choose built in selective filters that I can overlay on the story and the additional research.

Taking this further, if we had a fairly low level of English comprehension and/or intelligence, what we’d probably locally call the A Current Affair audience, then the story’s ACA filter would be very clear in it’s intent.

Today the Localville school board couldn’t decide if they should teach biblical history and Darwin’s evolution, the scientific theory that we descended from apes, in the same classroom. Here’s why this is important: [..]

Or if we were science academics, then our academic filter could produce this.

The proposition that Intelligent Design Network’s Objective Origins Teaching Policy — the teaching of the newly renamed for liberal consumption creationism alongside evolution — should be considered by the Localville school board, was dealt an initial blow today, when permanent and transient members of the council found themselves in deadlock over adoption of what some counsellers referred to as the atheist’s biological critique of illogical determinism. [..]

Sure it’s wordy, but if you know the lingo, you’re getting way much more information than the ACA filter.

Obviously the technology and big media’s capacity to provide this kind of news is a long way off, but through smaller steps by individuals towards the various control points currently in big media’s publishing pipeline, we can gradually move towards personalisation of the media that exactly matches our own interests, intelligence, intellect, political bent, and countless other aspects of our individual character.

News doesn’t need to be biased toward my opinion, but it should at least be an objective summation of the various angles/aspects of a story, tailored to my own personal interests and level of understanding. e.g. I know what evolution is, so I don’t need a paragraph explaining it, but other people might.

Now, where did I put my good news filter.

(Originally posted to Synop weblog)