The Times They Are A Changin'

Every lecture seems to start with a depressing diagnosis for the media - traditional journalism is on its last legs and has a Do Not Resuscitate order taped to its chest.

Luckily for us, Matthew Yeomans got to the good news quickly. Us Bright Young Things will have a head start in the world of online journalism and social media - we are entering the trade ready equipped with the tools needed to succeed in this quickly evolving environment.

But if journalism is changing so quickly, will our tools be outmoded in ten years time? Ten years ago the blog didn't exist, and now there are 110 million of them. We can't predict where journalism is going, but we can use our awareness of the pace of change to keep abreast of technological developments.

The idea that the media has some kind of utopian endpoint isn't constructive, and is comparable to the Marxist theory of History. We aren't working towards the ultimate mode of journalism, it is always going to change and evolve. If we want to keep up, we will have to change and evolve with the media.

But, it's not what we have, it's how we use it. Having the technology to produce sites like blogger, Twitter and MySpace is meaningless if we don't use them innovatively.

Matthew Yeomans says web 2.0 levels the playing field, allowing small organisations or individuals to punch above their weight. He gave us the examples of Money Saving Expert and Greenpeace. Both sites use social media to exert a level of influence that would have been impossible before these tools existed.

Social media allows communities of interest to grow, and express themselves without having to spend extortionate amounts of money. Charities can have websites more powerful than large corporations just by engaging with media available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection.

If this isn't democratising, then I don't know what is. Social media has the power to make our society more plural, once the revolution reaches everybody.

But I'm not sure old Karl Marx would approve. Afterall, isn't democracy a smokescreen? Not in web 2.0.

Image courtesy of Dunechaser @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/dunechaser/104968043/