The ranting brigade
Frankly, i am quite tired (and worrried to a certain extent) of the rants (even though they might be true) about media convergence, the death of traditional journalism, emergence of personal media, blah, blah, blah and so on and so forth...
I mean if this could really be true, which it could be, then we would be living in a world more virtual than we already are, communicating with virtual beings and practically feeding on the computer. The question that really comes to my mind is - is it really possible? And more importantly, is it worth it?
Is it usual for human beings to want to communicate and share ideas with people they haven't met and isolate themselves from those with whom they can share? Are these signs of eye-to-eye intolerance?
Another question that comes to my mind very often is that if the blogs and the vlogs and the outernet (what de F*** is that??!) start tasking the roles the mass media is playing, will there be any space left behind for expertise and proficiency? If not, isn't that countering the primary essence of journalism? Moreover, will the public (Let us understand for a fact that not everyone, as expected will participate in this media revolution) accept their verdict?
I don't think it is possible for vloggers or bloggers to give authoritative verdicts or lets say, come close to the phenomenon of breaking news stories. Neither do they have the sources, the know-how or the power that organized media beaurocracies do, nor the infrastructure. And they day they get influential, they will have to shift gears and organize themself into a beaurocracy, to run efficiently! And voila, thats the end of the difference between them and organized media - its blurred in a swift!
And hence i say, like most other things, the media too is passing through a vicious cycle and this is just another phase. At the end of it, it will all boil down to J O U R N A L I S M - serious, tabbloid, whatever - (replete with its buoyant spirit of routine mediocrity - whooo getzz de first shots of Madonna's baby???????) and not the mediums through which it is channeled...
The only way i can prove this unfortunately, is when someone with his/her big mouth announces the death of vlogs/blogs & the emergence of some godforsaken new thing/stuff that endangers the existance of traditional journalism. Yet again!
And for that we'll have to wait!
I mean if this could really be true, which it could be, then we would be living in a world more virtual than we already are, communicating with virtual beings and practically feeding on the computer. The question that really comes to my mind is - is it really possible? And more importantly, is it worth it?
Is it usual for human beings to want to communicate and share ideas with people they haven't met and isolate themselves from those with whom they can share? Are these signs of eye-to-eye intolerance?
Another question that comes to my mind very often is that if the blogs and the vlogs and the outernet (what de F*** is that??!) start tasking the roles the mass media is playing, will there be any space left behind for expertise and proficiency? If not, isn't that countering the primary essence of journalism? Moreover, will the public (Let us understand for a fact that not everyone, as expected will participate in this media revolution) accept their verdict?
I don't think it is possible for vloggers or bloggers to give authoritative verdicts or lets say, come close to the phenomenon of breaking news stories. Neither do they have the sources, the know-how or the power that organized media beaurocracies do, nor the infrastructure. And they day they get influential, they will have to shift gears and organize themself into a beaurocracy, to run efficiently! And voila, thats the end of the difference between them and organized media - its blurred in a swift!
And hence i say, like most other things, the media too is passing through a vicious cycle and this is just another phase. At the end of it, it will all boil down to J O U R N A L I S M - serious, tabbloid, whatever - (replete with its buoyant spirit of routine mediocrity - whooo getzz de first shots of Madonna's baby???????) and not the mediums through which it is channeled...
The only way i can prove this unfortunately, is when someone with his/her big mouth announces the death of vlogs/blogs & the emergence of some godforsaken new thing/stuff that endangers the existance of traditional journalism. Yet again!
And for that we'll have to wait!
posted by Nikhil Inamdar at 7:09 PM
1 comments
