What is the idea of global journalism and the critical discussion all about? Why spend time researching and critiquing something that seems both inevitable and general, vast complex and subject to a myriad of interpretations? Journalism has been going global for centuries – it has been in the DNA since invention: Yet, it seems like the invention of the internet and the world wide web om key respects completely changes the point with the discussion concerning global journalism.
Below are some reflections and resources for studying and reflecting on the subject, highlighting the thinking of one particular giant in this area – someone who thinks a bit different, with a focus on providing frameworks not just for critique but for change – Ethan Zuckerman. His perspectives are really important.
Please also review my project website http://globaljournalism.tveiten.net/, where you will find a great deal more on this issue. By selecting the button global journalism in my category list or on the front page, you will get the entire blog contents on this topic. Please also review the TedTalks list on the subject. Some of the links below come from that list – and is accordingly attributed.
Ethan Zuckerman: Imaginary cosmopolitanism
Among the most important voiced in the international community of critics and scholars of globalization, Zuckerman talks about the changes now going on in journalism from a perspective all his own: Rather than focusing on the institutional changes, the economics and the ideologies of pervasive global media giant companies, he looks a community and the more practical challenge of how we deal with the fact of global journalism as citizens:
From his bio – direct: “Ethan Zuckerman is a senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. His research focuses on the distribution of attention in mainstream and new media, the use of technology for international development, and the use of new media technologies by activists. He and his team recently launched Media Cloud, an open-source platform for studying online media that enables quantitative analysis of media attention”.
From his 2010 talk “Listening to global voices” (about 650K views) – some select points:
- The early prediction was that the internet would expand connectivity and create global communities, whereas Zuckerman notes how the internet more seems to create and consolidate already existing fragments and sub-cultures.
- The world is getting more global and more connected. More problems are global than at any time before, and yet our media are less global by the day. This is a paradox. But the truth is that the news media were more international in orientation before than it is today.
- This is not the mainstream TV media, but the elite media like New York Times, as well.
- A heavy bias towards the countries that are close, that the US has invaded, or where there is an important market relation.
- More than 95% of the news are local. We remain profoundly local and parochial, as consumers.
- This is a problem, because our current problems are global.
- www.globalvoices.org
- This is a website and a community to know about.
- How one would rewire the global media: The dark spots in the world, in terms of media attention – you can get information from these places, but it takes a lot more effort.
Zuckerman has a clear focus on global citizenship, actual networking and the pursuit of a global problem-solving functionality. This presentation was recorded in 2010; Zuckerman presented a lot of very insightful understanding, which is getting more relevant by the year.
Global information DJ´s: You wonder what it is? Look through through video.
The video mentions several websites – here are my two favourites, still operating in 2016:
www.globalvoices.org
www.afrigadget.com
Eli Pariser: On Filter bubbles
A likeminded view is presented in the video below, featuring Eli Pariser – a pioneer in online organization. Whic hyou can check out on his bio right here. The following quote is from that bio: ““When confronted with a list of results from Google, the average user (including myself until I read this article) tends to assume that the list is exhaustive. Not knowing that it isn’t … is equivalent to not having a choice. Depending on the quality of the search results, it can be said that I am being fed junk — because I don’t know I have other choices that Google filtered out.” — Aubrey Pek, commenting on Kim Zetter’s “Junk Food Algorithms”: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/eli-pariser-at-ted”