Predicting the future

Predicting the future

Ten years from now, what would the media landscape look like? How would you consume media at that time?

Ten years from today, the media landscape may look like a variation of the media landscape today. Although I believe that social media is here to stay, I believe traditional mediums like television and print editorials will be in little use in the future. Television content may shift to online websites completely and print editorials like magazines and newspapers may be found only online. For both convenience and environmental reasons, I believe all existing media will be transferred online. In ten years, generation X will be in the workforce and implementing their native online mediums while baby boomers' traditional mediums will be faded out. Hosting content on online websites is more economical than printing considering the cost to design, buying space, printing thousands of copies for circulation, paying the vendors to host your print materials, etc. Also, technology will have advanced even more to be more compatible to host a variety of formerly traditional mediums online.  

Ten years from now

Ten years from now, what would the media landscape look like? How would you consume media at that time?

While the circulation and readership of print media are likely to decrease and some newspapers may be shut down, most newspapers will remain major players in the media landscape. In an attempt to attract young consumers, online newspapers may display more non-public affairs, such as entertainment, at the expense of political and social topics. Also, hand watches will be used to consume content, mainly entertainment, but news as well. Facebook will remain dominant and function as the networked public affairs. Attempts of other companies to compete with this social networking site are likely to fail.

The Future

I think the future media landscape will be more of the same, just bigger. Many channels for information coming from a few main sources with plenty of misinformation thrown in thanks to the social and interactive nature of the internet. I'm not as interested in how we will consume media at that time as much as what media we will be consuming. The fewer gatekeepers we have in media and the more voracious the "i want it NOW" news cycle, the easier it is to get the wrong information and especially to signal-boost it. But maybe, in 10 years, our need to avoid anything that offends us will have created even smaller online communities where selective exposure becomes our own personal gatekeeper and the accuracy of the media is no longer as important as to whether we agree with it or not. Or whether it entertains us.

We'll still have newspapers, though. We'll still have TV news and the radio and all the things people think are going away. Maybe we've added something else. Maybe we all have google glass or cochlear implants that whisper the news directly into our brain. Maybe we have little screens on our shoes so we can send messages and still see where we are going.

2025: A Dystopic Media Landscape

Predictions are only as good at the data you have to work with, and even then they are only predictions. There are so many factors that will impact the media landscape in the next 10 years: mergers and acquisitions, audience preferences, political regime changes and new laws, the innovation of new technologies, and the list goes on.

The fact of the matter is, the way things are going right now, all media are increasingly and blatantly becoming marketplaces for consumers to meet advertisers. By 2025, I think there will be two very different Internet experiences. A completely free version of the web which comes with free hardware, but that constantly harasses people with advertisements. This will probably be marketed to low income people.

There will also be a highly premium version of the Internet that allows the elite to pay for content and not have to deal with advertisements (as much). 

Newspapers and even digital native news media outlets will be less relevant for news and information, as in the next 10 years people will grow increasingly tired of their hawking of advertisements. 

Instead, we'll go back to a model of advocacy journalism organizations producing important investigative stories. We're seeing this already happening with the rise of ProPublica, Marshall Project, and the Texas Tribune. Non-profits will begin commissioning their own investigative units as social issues become more intense. 

News media's incessant need for advertising profits will be its downfall, and will give rise to media outlets that educate people through well-thought out stories rather than an incompetent barrage of content that is great for profit but horrible for educating the public. 

future media landscape

Ten years from now, what would the media landscape look like? How would you consume media at that time?

People will have really pointy, sharp fingers. I'd feel much more comfortable reading digital books than now. 

Predicting the future

Ten years from now, what would the media landscape look like? How would you consume media at that time?

Amazon Mechanical Turk for Online Survey/Experiment

Margaret sharing tips on M Turk

2015 Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC)

We should have participated in this contest! 
http://www.utdallas.edu/news/2015/11/12-31767_Jindal-School-Teams-Google-Marketing-Campaigns-Rea_story-wide.html?WT.mc_id=NewsFacebook

Algorithmic

 I thought the reading this week was interesting especially in how it contrasted the author's idea of "professional journalism" where the audience is rarely thought of to "algorithmic journalism" where the opposite is true. I also liked how the author made sure to recognize that the relationship can too easily be oversimplified, which i think is often very tempting to do. It's good to recognize the advantages and new abilities that big data and technology gives us, but i think the author is saying we need to continue to put a critical eye to it and not get swept away in the wave of newness.

News: Hearts on Twitter

https://blog.twitter.com/2015/hearts-on-twitter

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/nov/08/twitter-heart-wrong-beat

Implications for journalism

It surprises me every time I read a journalism article how little attention has been paid to the audience. Anderson (2011) writes that this is primarily because of a disconnect from the audiences, the "inability to intellectually imagine an audience of millions of people." However, that's what advertisers do all the time. No one can simply imagine what audiences may be like but advertisers have always sought audience response to reflect opinions and improve campaigns. I do not understand how news had evolved around superiors writing for themselves assuming "that what interested them would interest the audience" for so many years before finally coming to the realization that the the millions of audiences out there may have different thoughts and opinions. Despite the importance of audiences, I think they serve a different purpose for an industry like advertising that is a commercial business versus a news organization that needs to serve the public's best interest without monetary incentives. I feel that citizens have the right to be informed of public national matters regardless of what kind of articles other audiences want to read about. To me, public journalism movement seems like the best option. Indymedia's push where audiences are encouraged to be citizen journalists does not seem newsworthy to me and people can write their opinions on their private blogs. Demand media has an algorithm set up to pump out new articles and videos based on popular searches and online trends. This simply adds to what is already known and popular out there and does not contribute to actual news or new information.

algorithmic audiences

This week’s reading on Anderson talks about the relatively novel concept called, algorithmic audiences. By analyzing three different journalism-audience relationships—the public journalism, Indymedia, and demand media—the author tries to correlate to different images of democracy and sociological implications. Algorithmic journalism is reducible to quantification and the visualization of an aggregative audience. Because the domain of this research is quite new, it’s more of speculation rather than empiricism. The way algorithmic journalism works is based on INTERNAL BIAS, which goes back to the last week’s reading: democratic journalism provides what the public needs, not what the public wants. If algorithmic journalism sees audiences as non-participatory, simply guided by their internal bias without critical thinking, content with what the media has to offer, and unconcerned with eliminating bad information, how is it different from the way capitalism operates? Yes, journalism is a unique business model, but the very nature of journalism is to create the civil society. It should be careful not to simply follow the systems of capitalism and advertising.

Don't track me, bro

The topics raised by the paper were very interesting after just reading through the two articles on Facebook's studies. A lot of what the researchers wrote involved how much power the audience now has in agenda-setting, and how journalists need to understand they are no longer passive. This thought is reinforced by the two articles on Facebook where we saw audience posts manipulated to successfully influence other users.

To me, this just shows how important it continues to be that journalists not get swept up in audience-driven editorial judgement because enough of that is happening in the social media world already. The authors cite Barger and Barney saying “the market requires giving the public what it wants; democracy requires giving the public what it needs” (2004) and I think it's crucial for journalists to remember that they are not exclusively market-driven.

Of course, privacy issues are also a big concern in the first two articles, as big data is collected and then used to manipulate the public unknowingly. It certainly reinforces how important it is to have trained professional researchers and journalists who know the ethics of what they do.

Ethics

Facebook conducted a study, which manipulated users’ emotional state. More negative News Feeds led to more negative status messages, as more positive News Feeds led to positive statuses. Not to mention their mal use of the tools, it seriously challenges ethical issues. Even though some might refer this study as original, ethically, it’s an open question. Morality comes before any legality. We make regulations/laws out of ethical reasons. Somewhat contrary to their findings, there have been studies indicating the more users see other people being happy, the more they feel depressed and less happy.

 

The Facebook has always been manipulating users’ News Feeds. It uses an algorithm to determine what to display and hide, and it rarely discloses any detailed information about how the algorithm works. This is why I don’t use Facebook.
Tandoc and Thomas’ article on “The ethics of web analytics” was a good transition after reading articles about how deceptive the Facebook is. However, whether the Facebook can be considered as journalism still remains.

Ethics and Audiences

The readings this week were really fascinating. I had not read a full autopsy of the Facebook/Cornell study, and the Atlantic's article delivered!

The Atlantic piece offers both a critique of Facebook users for being too over the top, and Facebook/Cornell for being surreptitious and shady. It's interesting to see users/audiences have such vehement reactions to the study, however, people didn't actually leave. Facebook continues to grow. The research Facebook is doing should give audiences pause. Though Facebook claims to have not read personal messages of people in the study, it is manipulating users' experiences as they not only engage with content but with each other. I think this is what I find most ethically questionable. Facebook's algorithm has the power to manipulate our relationships with our family, friends. Yes, it may be useful to helping us connect with one another, but now that the company is a publicly trading entity, its focus has shifted to serving its shareholders. The Huffington Post article describes how Facebook may have impacted an election, and though on the face encouraging people to vote is a positive thing, I think audiences should be weary that a company like Facebook can influence who we vote for. Facebook is not simply a tech company, but also prescribes to certain political beliefs.

On the other hand, it is really interesting to see the strong reactions from Facebook users. We are seemingly manipulated every day by similar A/B tests from our cable and mobile providers, and perhaps even the people at the Belo coffee shop. There appears to be a strong disconnect with people understanding what Facebook provides and what Facebook is. And when its true colors are brightly lit, people freak out en masse. This reaction is ephemeral as people continue using Facebook's service. Perhaps if we paid for Facebook, there may be a different reaction?

The ethics of audience research

The audience has a large influence on advertising but I found it surprising to read that the audience matters to the newsroom to the "point where audience members can choose, promote, and even disseminate information beyond the control of the newsroom and thus potentially set the news agenda" (Tandoc & Thomas 2015). While I agree that the power balance between journalists and audiences may shift due to technology advancements and the influence of social media, I don't think that audience feedback should determine or set the news agenda. This is unethical as news should be based on hard factual news that informs the people of what is happening around the world. It should not be based on what audiences want to see reported in their news.

Tandoc & Thomas (2015) advice that journalists "resist the commercial imperative." There needs to be a balance between the market and the audience to come to an ethical decision about news reporting. I think that with news, audience opinions and responses to the content of the report should be gathered so the next report can reflect public opinion - not just a collection of preferences and judgement on the type of articles they want to see. Whether audiences like it or not, things are going to happen regardless of audience preference, and it only hurts the audience if these are left unreported. This is not like an advertisement where the only consequences of a failed ad is loss in revenue of a company and brand. News that centers around the audience too much may fail to bring out important issues in the society which has a greater impact on society than just monetary loss.