The state of the media and the potential role for citizen journalists is (at least in the case of the former) an important issue for all of us. In business schools at least, the role and operation media is an issue that get skant critical coverage. This is a pity because without consistent, detailed coverage of key issues, we cannot be informed citizens and without an informed approach to using the media we cannot safely use it in a functional way (to understand the broader commercial environment, for example).

Given the apparent crisis in the media, brought about by shifts in revenue sources (advertising) from the mainstream national and local press to website (such as eBay and Craigslist, but also news aggregators like Google and Yahoo), considering other business models for acquiring news, particularly with an analytical or critical approach is important. Citizen journalism might provided a useful augmentation to professional journalism (in whatever state) for certainly academic publishing is not a route to timely economic, political and social insight.

There might be a range of activities that could be defined as citizen journalism. On the immediate and shallow there are contributions to twitter, flickr and other instant publishing site. These might be suitable for reporting news as it happens for events such as natural and civil disturbances. At the other end there might be individuals or groups with considerable expertise that research and publish into an issue. Here we might imagine a group of citizens concerned about local government corruption steadily analysing and reporting on zoning decisions.

Criticism of citizen journalism is, inter alia, based on the assumption that Joe Blow, bored with publishing cat-on-skateboard clips to YouTube will now move on to cover corruption at city hall and, to be fair to the critics, this appears to be the dominant genre at the moment. Current citizen journalists are often telling personal stories, which however moving, are just one side of the story (such as in the Huffington Post stories, particularly on insurance and healthcare). This lack of perspective (or the need for the reader to research to add the perspective) is a significant difference to good, traditional journalism, which puts both sides of the story on the reader’s plate (see discussion / comment in Citizen Journalism: Receipe for Disaster? by Ron Steinman).

What sometimes seems ignored is that good investigative stories are more than just the journalist, requiring input from domain experts. So, a good story about systemic corruption requires input from experts on the law, maybe economists who can value the cost of the curruption, etc. If journalism becomes underfunded, citizen journalists must emerge as the co-ordinators and writers of the stories (given that the domain experts are probably still in place) or that the domain experts who were prepared to comment to journalists must now comment themselves.

Where those domain experts are university faculty, it strikes me that there is something of a public engagement obligation to ensure these issues are aired, irrespective of the mode (academic publishing, comment to mainstream newspapers, or on university and private blogs and other news sites).

I have slowly been getting back into some experimenting with multimedia. Some of this has been prompted by my experiments with podcasts and subsequent attempts to think about adding supporting text and interactivity to them (all without spending 3 days a week to produce 10 minutes that will only be used once). Some has been prompted by seeing the work of others. Some has been prompted by new technology.

One idea that I had been discussing with a more multimedia and technologically savvy buddy has been produced fantastically and is available on Wired. The project captured sights and sounds for the internet and has them in a visual and sonic collage.

While this is probably not at all useful for my teaching, it could be the basis for a great student project (particularly for field schools). While I wouldn’t expect business school students to be quite so artistic and to, instead, be somewhat more explicit in their expression of meaning, so kind of audio visual collage could be a useful part of making sense of a field school project.

I have also been motivated by by the release of a new Canon camera (the 5D Mark II). I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time as an update to my ageing (camera) body. The new camera is much, much better in low light (for evening and night time footage) and, most impressively, has excellent video capabilities. Vincent Laforet’s blog had (and will have again) links to footage from a pre-release version of the camera.

While, the video capabilities are much better than I could ever use, it will mean only taking one device and using my existing lenses. So, for capturing some sense of movement, video interviews and documenting student experiences on the field school, this sounds idea (if a little excessive). It will mean developing some new skills with video editing and a more dynamic sense of interaction with the world I want to capture.

Finally, I have been pondering the difference between photography from a journalist’s perspective and from an artists perspective. The journalist seeks to show the world as it is, though it might be hidden from view (and perhaps change it through that documentation). The artist seeks to show it in different ways, to force us to reconceptualise what we already know (and perhaps change it through that process). Perhaps there is a third category, who takes photos of pretty things.

This photograph is in the second category. Its in the second category because I have attempted to highlight the grand old building in Market Square. Lots of people don’t like the new fountain. However, I think it works powerfully to not overshadow the building and not overpower the space for people to meet. By hyper-saturating the colours, I hope to show the building as it is, and as the square will be once the fountain because an accepted, naturalised part of the square.

I’ve finally written a new post on technology. This one is about the tech media and the distinction between reporting, satire and the problems that failing to distinguish between the two cause. You can find it on mitussis.com.