Community 2.0

Online communities are the order of the day for my master’s this semester. So we’re blogging, using an ELGG community and a wiki as part of the fun and games.

I’ve always had a problem with blogging - as a journalist I was always taught that my view isn’t important, it’s all about what the reader is interested in. You write for a community and are involved in it, but maybe were more apart from it rather than a part of it. Traditionally you got scared when a reader called to talk about a story (maybe because you were worried there had been a mistake).

This has changed since the advent of the comment box on the end of the story, as the reader can now comment on what has been said. Interestingly though, most journalists don’t want to/aren’t encouraged to engage with the commenting public on these.

Met a very interesting guy called Paul Bradshaw a few weeks ago, he works at UCE in Birmingham specialising in new media. His view is that blogs and wikis are the new journalism and are more vital as they are participatory - that everyone is part of the community. Check his ideas out
I like this, but as per usual I’m more of an evolution rather than a paradigm shift kind of guy.

Paul was talking about newspapers getting out of the age of letters to the editor, ‘who cares about the editor’ he said. He believes we cut out the middle man and talk to each other.

I agree blogs and wikis are the way forward here (and comments on the bottom of news stories will help us while we upgrade), but in my view and that of a lot of journalists most ‘letters to the editor’ were actually to the other readers. A print-age community noticeboard perhaps?

Paul doesn’t agree and there’s a great Twitter from the Future of Newspapers Conference aimed at me and at one of the guys who teaches sports journalism at Brighton University who was sat in front of me.
But then we’re both from a newspaper background, mine is in regionals – Paul’s experience is from mags.

And this is an interesting point (and the long lead in ends now, so the little wind-up monkey who has been banging his drums can sit down for a pint and watch Heroes. Hey, there’s a thought “Save the wind-up monkey, save the world!”).

Newspapers, at a regional level, are interested in a geographical community (yes, ok you can argue that it is self selecting and an old-fashioned hegemony of old white men etc – don’t agree with you, but please feel free as I hear it everyday at work from my academic colleagues. As if I’ve not got enough of a complex already!) so there is a broad focus.

Magazines are communities of interest, people buy mags around a specific subject just like they pick their favourite blogs et al.

But then if you read history books about Punk fanzines like Sniffin’ Glue, it was possible to reach out to a new community of interest with a cheap (relatively) and effective form of publishing. They used a Xerox machine, now we’re using blogs and wikis

Maybe this new technolgocial approach is better, maybe it is a paradigm shift or maybe it’s just going to be a group of usual suspects getting involved in a community of interest. Now they’ve got the tools to go worldwide rather than reach like-minded people on a regional or national level.

Is it better? Who knows, who cares? Not me, I’ll be having too much fun watching what happens and listening to the opposing theories.

I may even break some of my journalistic training and have an opinion every now and then. Welcome along for the ride – Communities 2.0, and this time it’s even more personal.

Hasta la vista, neighbours.

October 9, 2007 | Filed Under Journalism, blog, communities, wiki 

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