MediaShift

Here is a new blog that Val Kelly found: MediaShift, which is posted on the PBS site. In several ways this site is a model for the MediaMindsets blog. MediaShift's purpose, as posted, is to "track how new media . . . are changing society and culture." And it has a reading list of books, links to blogs and Web sites (13 mentioned) and a glossary (11 terms). The blog also posts a weekly Top Five items related to people, trends and technology.

One article of relevance to Media Mindsets is an interview with Dan Gillmor, posted this week (1/31).

Gillmor is the former technology expert and columnist at the San Jose Mercury News who left to promote use of new media in grassroots (citizen) journalism. He has recently started the non-profit Center for Citizen Media. Two of his partners are the University of California at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

I think Gillmor's center will cover somewhat the same territory as Media Mindsets, but I don't think it will duplicate our work. Certainly its work, especially with its university ties, will worth following.

New terms

Almost every day I find a new term used in relating to new media or new services. A couple of these are Vlogs for video logs and Ultramercials, a registered trade mark. An Ultramercial Ad Unit is "a full-screen multi-page format that viewers CHOOSE to watch in order to grain fr*ee access to normally paid content. "

I think we may want to begin our own glossary, either on this Blog site or on the new Media Mindsets Web page. Such a glossary would be easy to update and, I think, would both make a contribution and help us in communicating about our own work.

Did someone say 'porn'?

At one point in our meeting last week, someone raised the topic of dealing with pornographic content in research on media use. As always the group discussion proceeded with caution (even though Dean Jim Gaudino was out of the room at the time).

The new MediaShift site, mentioned above, also has a reference to adult content in its discussion on presenting video on small screens, i.e., video iPods.

Copy changes

The last posting (1/20) discussed how Web sites have the potential to correct errors and then deny the original wording. This week the blog Boing Boing has an example of the change being made--and the original source getting caught.

Gatekeeping

Any discussion of grassroots journalism probably brings to mind, at least for academicians, the question of the gatekeeping. Fortune magazine has a recent article on this topic.

--Joe Harper

Measurement

One of the issues we will be dealing with in the Media Mindsets project is how to measure audiences. The mainstream media have enough controversies measuring broadcast and newspaper audiences. Online audiences present a different set of problems. And now the developing/converging media with their combinations of news, entertainment and advertising bring unforeseen meaurement issues--and new terms.

Gracie Lawson-Borders submitted a valuable article last month, Old Metrics in a New Era, <http://www.poynter.org/profile/profile.asp?user=199230 >. It is posted on the CCI/Flashline group page, and it discusses SUM, which "tracks the level of interaction a user has with a Web site," and the issue of new statistics for new media. (Poynter is holding a conference on this subject March 12-15 <http://www.poynter.org/seminar/seminar_view.asp?int_seminarID=3800>.)

The article contains links to four major audience-measurement services: comScore Media Metrix <http://www.comscore.com/>, Nielsen/NetRatings <http://www.netratings.com/> , Scarborough Research <http://www.scarborough.com/> and The Media Audit <http://www.themediaaudit.com/>.

. . . and WOM (word-of-mouth) marketing

Also from Poynter: Al Tompkins' column, Al's Morning Meeting today (1/20) writes about the Word of Mouth Marketing Association's meeting in Orlando, Fla. Topics of importance to this group include measuring the reach and impact of messages. New terms include buzz marketing and viral marketing.

Related to this topic, the Nielsen research group (owned by VNU) has announced the creation of Nielsen BuzzMetrics Service to, according to their news release, "create the new global standard for measuring and understanding word-of-mouth behavior and influence." For more information, check <http://www.nielsenbuzzmetrics.com/>.

Comments

Rosemary DuMont posted a comment following the introductory blog raising the question of how this blog relates to the group site on Flashline. I would hope this will become clearer in the coming weeks. We all have enough to read without needless duplication. We would appreciate your comments on the blog.

The task of disseminating information and keeping everyone up to date on Media Mindsets is going to grow in the coming months, especially as Paul Haridakis and the Communication Studies literature review project begins to produce material.

Nots, er, Notes

There were at least two spelling errors in the first blog; one was pointed out by a reader in South Africa (son Will). Those two have been corrected. However, the situation underlines a potentially important difference between the digital world and traditional media. Newspapers with more than one edition routinely correct mistakes between editions, but readers of the earlier edition may well have a copy of the mistake. Readers of last week's blog--or yesterday's or last month's--are unlikely to have verification that a particular statement had been posted.

Politicians have commonly claimed they were misquoted when their statements draw fire. Now they can cite their hastily revised Web site to bolster their claim.

--Joe Harper

Introduction to Media Mindsets Blog

The Media Mindsets blog, as I envision it, is a work in progress. Today we move from discussion in meetings to putting thoughts in writing. (I almost said “on paper,” but that’s only one of the things I am having to change in my thinking.)

Let me start by sharing some of my thoughts on the role that a Media Mindsets blog can serve. I invite you to offer your suggestions on directions in which the blog should move and topics it should—and should not—address.

The creation of a blog should stimulate ideas and encourage discussion. Some personal blogs are heavily opinionated—and the opinion that prevails is that of the blog master. This blog is designed to be a research blog, not a personal blog, and, therefore, a forum for expressing ideas.

First there is so much material being produced daily that relates to areas of interest and importance for members of the Media Mindsets group: new media technological developments, changes in media businesses, media use by different groups and so on.
A contribution I hope this blog can make is to help us sharpen the focus of the Media Mindsets project. Perhaps discussion engendered here will produce agenda items for our formal meetings.

One goal for the blog is to reduce the amount of reading for the Media Mindsets group. Certainly if reading this blog becomes just more “chore,” it will have been counter-productive. I invite you to share with me sites that regularly or even occasionally post content of relevance for this project. I plan to write a new posting at least once a week with comments on and links to perhaps a half-dozen articles.

A second function this blog can serve is to provide a communication outlet for the group. Pearle’s latest message went out to 24 people and this number is growing. It's getting to be difficult for everyone to have an opportunity to share his/her thoughts during meetings. And as the group grows, it is becoming harder to find meeting times that non-retired members can work into their schedules.

The technical side

As for the technical side of the blog, credit Val Kelly, Rosemary DuMont and Sam Harper for getting me this far with the blog. Val is continuing to work on RSS feeds and related technical matters.

I invite your comments on either the content of the blog or other matters related to it. Add a comment to the blog or send it to me at jharper@kent.edu
Actually you might want to do both while we are in the testing phase.

Also you might test a couple of links to material related to media use. A good site to try is Pew's:

http://www.pewinternet.org/

. . . and for a site updated on weekdays that includes some media usage material:

http://www.iwantmedia.com/

. . . which referred to a story at

http://observer.com/media_offtherecord.asp


To go to a story posted on Flashline for the Media Mindsets group, try

http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/171/report_display.asp
--Joe Harper