Journalism and the Internet

Many of the effects that the advent of the internet has had on journalism are relatively easy to identify, as evidenced by the many points brought up by Jay Rosen and Nicholas Carr. Indeed, many of the arguments they bring up are ideas that have likely occurred to people who have only thought briefly on the subject, such as  more widespread access to materials and the ability for people who were once only consumers of news to contribute to the creation and discussion of it. Of the many arguments presented by these two debaters, the one that stood out the most to me was actually touched on by both debaters and the moderator as well. The question of 'Which stories are we missing?' seems to me to be the most important one to ask, because journalism is chiefly about delivering information.

The moderator, Tom Standage, touches on this briefly when he states that "measuring the impact of [less reporting] is almost impossible . . . you cannot know when a story is not being covered". I believe that one of the perpetual struggles of humankind is not knowing what we don't know, and I like that the moderator is working in the same idea space. While I did say that many of the effects of the internet on journalism are easy to identify, it is important to accept that there are effects we will probably never realize.

Moving away from the abstract to focus on a specific topic, both Rosen and Carr address the decreasing amount of coverage that news organizations are dedication to local governments, such as state capitols. (http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=4721). This is a result of cuts in staffing, and the implications are rather frightening. To some,  this may seem like an acceptable sacrifice (if one has to be made), because of the lack of attention that consumers usually give to local government news. To me, though, it is a frightening proposition, because while consumers may be more drawn to the sweeping and scathing rhetoric that makes federal government so interesting to watch, it is often the decisions made at the local level that has the most significant impact on people's lives. Regardless of whether they choose to reach out for it, the information must be there for them to find.

Weinberger and Shirky on Ontology

Knowledge has, for many generations, been represented as a hierarchy. There are categories (Math, Science, Humanities) and sub-categories (Algebra, Chemistry, Literature), and, theoretically, they encompass all human knowledge. Whether this is true or not is not an important question in Weinberger's "Taxonomies and Tags" and Shirky's "Ontology is overrated". Instead, both authors focus on new perspectives of knowledge brought about by the advent of the read/write web. Specifically, they focus on mass user-generated organization of information in the form of tags.

Research Ideas

Creating or choosing a topic on my own to write about has always been something I've struggled with. Is this a valid topic? Is there enough material for me to examine? Does the material have enough depth for me to analyze it? Am I intelligent enough to handle the topic properly? Needless to say, I've got a lot of hangups when it comes to writing papers, but I've also got a few ideas this time around:

1) Social Identity

I'll let two ladies more knowledgeable than myself pose the questions and ideas I'd like to address:
— Lene Arentsen: "The question is whether these media create new people or just new ways of expressing identity? Can you talk about online identity exclusively or is your virtual identity walking hand in hand with real-world identity?" http://lenearentsen.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/identity-and-digital-media/

— danah boyd: "I investigated how American teenagers socialize in networked publics . . . in how the architectural differences between unmediated and mediated publics affect sociality, identity and culture."
http://www.danah.org/

How are online identities created? What strategies are used to present an identity online? Does a person create a single identity across all online communities/networks, or does either the medium itself/the people who use it encourage a person to create different identities? Does the medium have an affect on what type of identity is created? Are these questions redundant, or nuanced?

2) Online Education

The effects of the internet on education are more than I could ever hope to sum up. I find it interesting, though, that in an age where institutionalized education has lost a lot of its value (the internet offers many opportunities to become "successful" on its own), we see the beginnings of what is essentially a scam education, aimed at people who can't see that the value of a degree is largely subjective. Do I have any real direction with this? Not yet, but it is a topic I find difficult to ignore.