Posts
 |
| Photo: The Hindu |
As 2011 comes to a close, the year's biggest events have mainstream media newsrooms pondering what these mean for their future. When revolutions and nuclear disasters are reported by ordinary people on mobile phones, what price conventional newsroom technology or the editorial skills honed over several years?
At an editors' summit in Hong Kong which drew media biggies from across continents, a few discoveries were being made. One, that leading media companies are now employing digital strategists to help them figure out how to go forward. Two, the hierarchy in the business is changing — the audience is no longer composed of passive recipients of what you choose to put out. Be nice to them — they threaten your future.
The head of digital strategy at ZDF, Germany, was there to point gently to a need for a change in the journalists' attitude: “We have to go from being oracle to guide. The lecture is becoming a conversation. As the audience gets more active, they receive and alter our content. Sources go direct, we lose control. Reverse your angle — the 20{+t}{+h} century info flow is changing. Don't look down at audience. Look across the table. Make the prime time newscast a conversation with the newscaster.”
There is even a new word in the vocabulary of the media business — pro-sumption, where the producer and consumer are becoming the same.
Source: The Hindu
