Journalism: Ethics and Democracy

First of all let’s ask an important question: What is a citizen journalist?

Citizen journalism is news by the people, for the people and it is extremely powerful. By powerful I mean it can take media in two very different directions. With citizen journalism the public can get their news and ideas out there on a grander stage than ever before using the internet and things like online magazines and/or blogs. Communities can make their local issues known to people all over the world so that others can help them come to or make use of solutions. Individuals can expose the news that is important to them to the whole world, an idea that The Long Tail is based upon-- a chance for every voice to be heard. People can again feel empowered knowing that yes, they can do something about the issues they care about, they can become better citizens if they know they really do have a voice. However, having the public play such an active role in the producing of news can also be damaging to the whole concept. Some people may be inclined to just make up news or exaggerate it; non-journalists may not be privy to or may not care about such journalistic ethics. There is also the matter of people who just want to produce news as a matter of propaganda for their cause, which brings me to the other direction citizen journalism can take us: The use of news outlets for setting an agenda. Citizen journalism can be a powerful tool to combat corporation/business controlled media outlets. Many major news organizations are controlled by corporations that use the “news” to promote their products, views, employees and/or bosses and anything else they want; you’ll see what they want you to see. Citizen journalism gives the public the chance to spread real news that people should care about, that people need to be hearing rather than corporate or political propaganda. In an article in NUJ Brussels, “We Stood Up For Journalism”, Thomas Hammarberg “advocated maximum transparency in media ownership, saying that this would have a considerable impact on the quality of journalism” and I totally agree with him.

Now that we know how corporations are adapting to digital media aka digital journalism—often by trying to use it to further their greedy agendas—let’s take a look at how others are adapting to it: Due to the massive amount of made up stuff on the internet, online news consumers have to get used to trying to figure out what are and aren’t reliable news sources. Consumers also have to decide whether paying for news is worth it for them or if they are satisfied with the free news they can find all over the internet. Consumers also have to decide what constitutes as news for them because what they consume most is what will decide what’s going to be the majority of what’s classified as news on the internet, for example, if people consider the results of last night’s episode of Dancing with the Stars news then that’s the kind of “news” that will dominate our news sites.

News organizations seem to not know what to do but scratch their heads trying to figure out what to do when it comes to the new era of digital journalism. Some fully embrace it but some fear the toll it will take on the structure and ethics of the industry. According to Cyra Masters, media insiders are torn as she showed in her article, “Media Insiders Say Internet Hurts Journalism”.

Some are quoted as saying things like: “The Internet has some plusses: It has widened the circle of those participating in the national debate. But it has mortally wounded the financial structure of the news business so that the cost of doing challenging, independent reporting has become all but prohibitive all over the world. It has blurred the line between opinion and fact and created a dynamic in which extreme thought flourishes while balanced judgment is imperiled” or “News consumption depends on news production, and I don't see anything on the Internet that produces news—that is, detailed responsible empirical journalism—the way newspapers do (or did). It is typical of Americans to get more excited about consumption than about production.”But some see it as a positive change: “You abandon the conceit that ‘newspapers’ equals ‘news,’ you realize that people have far more information available to them about current events than ever before, and that’s a great thing for both journalism (the gathering of news) and the public” and “It’s subjected journalists to more real-time scrutiny and opened the profession to talented people not affiliated with major media organizations”. Whichever side these insiders are on it’s clear that they want some form of legitimate journalism to survive. While in this limbo of not knowing what the future holds news organizations are doing things like charging for online subscriptions or changing the news content in ways that will improve reader/viewer ratings.

To keep our democracy alive and working we need legitimate news sources and outlets. Whether it is from citizen journalists or uncorrupted news organizations, for a proper democracy to work in the people’s favor we need someone out there getting us facts and information. We can’t have hidden agendas in our news, that is not democracy, that is manipulation. We can’t let cyber reporters slack from ethics just because they’re not writing on paper anymore. What we need to maintain is an ethical press above all else; A press that is not poisoned by the promise of large advertising dollars, or more exposure for individual journalists, one that maintains the principles of finding good, reliable sources and only prints facts. The people need to ensure that the news they ask for is the kind of news that really matters.

We also need a press that is spearheaded by the tenacity of investigative reporting and the flair, creativity and personal nature of gonzo journalism and other in depth styles. We cannot allow people that fight for the public and our democracy, even locals like Bill Spencer and Steve Wilson, to be pushed aside, because yes, their efforts are worth the extra money. Remember the accomplishments of solid journalistic practices: Upton Sinclair, Nelly Bly, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward and many more.

In ten years I don’t doubt that people will be reading the news off some tiny computer screen still but I hope that we’ve figured out a way to keep journalism an ethical business rather than just a profit seeking one. For the sake of truth and democracy we have to have someone working to tell the public the facts.

Merging Humans and Machines: the Future of Digital Convergence

What is Digital convergence?
According to the Center for Convergence and Emerging Networking Technologies (CCENT) “digital convergence refers to the profound changes in the structure of media caused by the emergence of digital technologies as the dominant method for representing, storing, and communicating information.”

Wikipedia defines digital convergence as “the digitalization of traditional media.” Not only converting things like text and photos to digital forms but also combining modern forms of technology into one.

Carol Wohlfeil of Helium says that digital convergence is method by which all forms of media and communication will be digitized allowing them to be accessed through a single global network. She says, “Digital convergence is quickly becoming a reality. The once vast and unreachable world is now being condensed into the confines of the computer.”

But to put it plain and simple, digital or technology convergence is the process of merging a few or many types of technology, media, or digital tools to make one “super” piece of technology. It is consolidating technologies that we need or want so that they are easier to use, more portable, and most importantly more convenient for the user.

The people at CCENT believe there are three qualifications for a useful digital convergence: “

1. 1. The coming together, into a single application or service, of information content from sound broadcasting, telephony, television, motion pictures, photography, printed text and money.
2. 2. A growing amount of overlap in the functions that can be performed by different physical telecommunication networks.
3. 3. A growth in the interactivity, interoperability and connectedness of different networks and information appliances in the home and the office.”

Consumers, news organizations, corporations and non profits all use digital convergence for the same basic reasons: organization, communication, and utility when you need it, basically to make life more convenient. Consumers use digital convergence tools to stay in contact wherever they are, to keep their daily lives organized, and so they can feel like they have access to the rest of their life wherever they are for a sort of peace of mind in an emergency or just to get things done.
News organizations use their video and camera phones to help them report the news, to blog the news on the internet and now are trying to use digital convergence tools to revive the newspaper industry as discussed one of the blogs we read, “Can the Apple iPad save newspapers?” In it, the author explains that “publishers are hoping that Apple will/can offer the same magic for the print world that it did for the music industry with iTunes.” She suggests that the iPad “could finally put a price on digital journalism” essentially saving the print journalism industry. News organizations are also getting and sharing news through social networking sites like Facebook.
Corporations and non-profit organizations use digital convergence tools in many of the same ways. These tools are convenient when you need to get projects/ work done while you’re away from the office, to stay organized with your employees/volunteers, to advertise (as on social networking sites [internet], television, in films etc.), to keep in contact with or have convenient meetings with partners/donors from around the world, and these tools usually always do something along the lines of eliminating wasted resources (like time and paper). Wolhfeil also made two points that I felt were very valid and worded very well about business’ use of digital convergence:

“Costly business trips that now include airfare, hotel fees, and meal expenses, will become a thing of the past as a walk down the hall to a conference room will serve the same purpose. Paper media, such as books and magazines, will become objects of art. Communication over great distances will take place instantaneously. And cash in your wallet will be considered eccentric as most financial transactions will occur with the push of a button.
Billions of dollars are already being poured into internet advertising and marketing as online buying continues to escalate. Product developers and advertisers will be forced to upgrade the quality of their performance which will easily be tracked by the network. Competition in the global marketplace will require businesses to be closely in tune with consumer needs and improve product development methods.”

Microsoft's Courier would be a great example of how a digital convergence gadget can be really useful.

There are downsides, however, to all of this digital convergence. People can become so dependent on these gadgets to a point where if you don’t have your iPhone with you it feels like you’re missing a limb and have no contact with the world. If you lose it you might have just lost all the projects you’ve worked on for six months, your contacts, you missed your video conference with your boss, etc. Also it really seems like many of these new gadgets become obsolete or are superseded within 2 or 3 years. So, every time you buy one you’re running the risk that something way more convenient to your life style will come out in a few months and you’ve wasted your money.
What we need to stop doing is trying to create what is called a “black box”. A black box is basically the magic machine, it has every function you could possibly need in one tiny, portable package. For example, the black box right now would be the iPhone. The iPhone is a phone (duh), an iPod, a computer (has the internet), and has endless applications to add whatever other function you need. However, if you already have an iPod, a cell phone and a laptop then buying an iPhone makes all of those practically useless and you just have a bunch of gadgets that you wasted your money on. And I’m sorry to say, one day the iPhone will be obsolete too.

How does digital convergence relate to Creative Commons and the Long Tail?
Creative Commons is digital convergence! CC is all about merging people’s work/ media/ technology and making something new/better/more convenient/ entertaining/informative and that is exactly what digital convergence is all about! As for The Long Tail, one example of how its related to digital convergence is that it is giving companies more “shelf space” for their products, information, etc. like the iTunes where you can buy songs, shows, movies etc. on the internet to play on your iPhone, iPod, or iPad.

Ten Years From Now?
I really think that one day all of us are going to have little chips the size of a watch screen implanted in our arms that have everything we could possibly need in them. They would emit hologram telephone calls, internet access, and television. They would contain all of our most important information like our social security number, passwords to any account you could possibly have, including bank accounts, your birth certificate, contacts, and criminal and credit records. It will be scary. That is how the government will finally control us. Totally bleak, I know. But I don’t think that’ll happen in ten years lol. I don’t really know what to expect ten years from now: in the 70’s people thought we’d have flying cars by the 90’s, but in the past decade or so technology has taken over practically every aspect of our daily lives. So, it’s really a toss-up, I think it really depends on how far people will let technology into our lives, if we fully embrace it maybe we will have chips in our arms and robot maids, if not maybe we’ll just be happy having our TV, phone and internet in the same tiny package.

Something Fun.
While there are some really cool and convenient forms of digital convergence there have also been some really useless ones (or at least ones that went as quickly as they came). Some good ones are the iPhone, ZuneHD, the Microsoft Courier and the Xbox. Some bad ideas were PDAs, the Nokia ngage, intel’s surfboard laptop and LG’s microwave television.


Here’s a video I found about convergence that I just thought was really interesting. Hope you like it.

Facebook and Twitter: Making Important Connections

Right now, even as a college student if you don’t have a Facebook or some other social networking account, you can be pretty out of the loop on some things. While I personally think that Twitter is a little excessive (and because I’m not to savvy on its inner workings), I really like using Facebook better. These social networking sites are so useful to people because they provide easy and quick access to friends, family, partners, businesses and basically anyone wants to be their “friend”. These are just a few of these social networking sites:

Many different people have many different uses for social sites. Individuals use these as networking tools, ways to keep in touch with friends and family, to find jobs and to ask questions/ get customer service from companies/ organizations that are also on Facebook or another networking site. News organizations use Facebook and Twitter to quickly get and spread information to and from sources, citizens, companies etc. Companies and non-profit organizations basically use these sites in the same ways in that they use them as a tool to raise awareness for their brand/product or cause, to get people involved with their efforts/ interacting with their business, to take donations/ sales, and to generally further their business/message. As Claire Cain Miller stated in her New York Times article, “[these social sites] can reach an unknown audience—a benefit that recruiters, human resources departments and job-seekers are fast discovering.”

There was also some mention in some of the articles I read about the concerns of fan groups that are set up on these sites and how that might affect your brand or campaign. I found a pretty interesting video about Coca-Cola and two big fans that kind of provided a possible upside to these "impostors" :

Using Facebook makes a lot of sense for small businesses for exactly the reasons that were brought up in the New York Times article on How to Market Your Business. For example, like I mentioned before, Kermit Patterson explains that, “Small businesses are using [social networking sites] to find new customers, build online communities of fans and dig into gold mines of demographic information.” As uncomfortable as I feel about advertisers targeting me through my Facebook information, I will admit that it’s a smart idea. In the same article, Clara Shih explains why it makes sense, “You need to be where your customers are and your prospective customers are…and with 300 million people on Facebook, and still growing that’s increasingly where your audience is for a lot of products and services.”However, I found a video in which Andrew Davis of Tippingpoint Labs makes some really good points about how businesses should be smart and be careful with their Facebook accounts:

Should my company be on Facebook? from Tippingpoint Labs on Vimeo.

As William Fisher pointed out, “Twitter [and other networking sites are] cheaper, faster and easier way[s] to recruit.” The magazine I work for uses Facebook to get people to go to our networking events, read our articles and even to recruit staff and collaborators. We have definitely gotten the word out about the magazine since we’ve been on Facebook.

As I mentioned before, many people simply use these sites to keep in contact with or find family and friends. Some people are taking that idea to the next level and are using Facebook to find missing children. I found a story where 27years after her son went missing a mom found him on Facebook and they were reunited. A non-profit organization called Missing Children South Africa uses their Facebook group page to help find missing children, and since their page went up on FB they’ve found three children! If that’s not greatly benefiting from Facebook, I don’t know what is.

Like Randi Zuckerburg talked about, it is to the advantage of many non-profit organizations to create a page on sites like Facebook since “more than 8 million Facebook users become ‘fans’ of new pages each day” it’s a great way to make people notice your cause."

These social networking sites are also really making changes in the way news organizations report. As I mentioned earlier, these social networking sites allow you to reach a bigger audience, and as Dorian Benkoil explained, “Most journalists are happy to have their work spread to as many eyes and ears as possible.” “The basic idea, though, is that once you're in Facebook, you'll stay there -- to communicate with people, get information, post photos and videos, play games, maybe even consume music and videos, or shop. With a newly powerful search and other tools, users may not want or need to open a new browser to search in Google or Yahoo or go to a Web site for whatever news and information they seek,” is the reasoning Benkoil gives for why it is in news organizations best interest to take part in advertising or promoting their organization on networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. By not doing so they could be completely passed over by internet surfers.

Social networking sites may even make some journalists jobs easier or at least could lead them to better or more information. "I think today social media is very important as a journalistic source. It provides journalists with a wider range of opinion, and gives them access to a whole range of voices,” says Peter Horrocks, BBC World Service director. He suggests a topic that we’ve learned earlier in the semester when discussing the events between Google and China, how we can use the internet and these social networking sites to quickly spread news and information from remote or restricted areas. I appreciated how he mentioned that even though its quick information and, as a news organization, you want to spread it just as quickly when you get it, you have to take into consideration and treat it like you would any other source and apply the same journalistic standards.

Social networking sites relate to The Long Tail concept in that they provide a voice to individuals within a large audience; they allow for the spread of information between individuals and large corporations and organizations; they give easy access and forms of advertising to small and local businesses; and they give individuals or groups a chance to rally supporters, employees, or even just people with common interests. Anyone with a social networking site increases their chances of getting exposure, potentially leveling out business monopolies in certain areas, giving people a chance to voice their own personal opinion to many viewers, and providing valuable networking tool(potentially giving more people opportunities for success).

Creative Commons or Copyright Criminals?

I am so torn on these issues of copyright debates, sampling from others' work, and freeing the knowledge of the world. While I don’t fully condone what might be considered “stealing” in the form of file sharing, I can’t act like I’m a totally innocent party, that’s all I’ll say about my role. I believe that yes, you have a right to be compensated for your work; I mean you worked all that time on it. However, there are so many things can be created by joining together many people’s ideas. I recently saw this documentary Copyright Criminals on PBS that I felt really made some valid points about this topic, specifically music sampling:

I like how this documentary showed both points of view. Like I said, I feel really conflicted about this; on one hand it seems really lazy to just take other people’s ideas to make something instead of working from scratch on something that is completely your own, but at the same time, many of humanities greatest ideas and creations have only come about by building off others' original ideas.

I think it’s really funny though how people are acting like with the internet has come all of these copyright issues but in reality this has been going on for a long time, the only difference is that the internet just brought it to the whole world instead of few with access. Here is an interesting timeline provided by Copyright Criminals.

I really think that Creative Commons also has legitimate possibilities for spreading knowledge, fostering creativity, and innovating the way we share ideas. To show the possibilities of what can be done with Creative Commons I made a project of my own (Mind you, this is nothing special and I am still learning both CC and Blogger):

I think that if you take something from Creative Commons it should be required that your final product should have to be on Creative Commons too. However, maybe I’m just dumb, I could hardly figure out what I could use, I guess they just want you to figure it out and I had a really hard time with that. I think it says something about the site that someone that’s new to it can’t easily figure out how to productively use it. So, maybe there’s still some work to be done.

http://creativecommons.org/
http://artistserver.com/
www.flickr.com/photos/josefstuefer/5681426/
www.glyphjockey.com/2008_06_01_archive.html
www.indiana.edu/~kines/undergraduate/dance.shtml
www.flickr.com/photos/nunoduarte/2801870408/
www.flickr.com/pintofeggs/151997902/
www.flickr.com/photos/emeryjl/371341236/
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NYS_Fair_Iroq...
flickr.com/photos/28481088@N00/2278240037/
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pierre-August...
flickr.com/photos/jesuspresley/75843603/
www.flickr.com/photos/brocco_lee/51189164/
www.flickr.com/photos/gracewong/295380997/
pkdeviance.blogspot.com/2008/03/su-fpe-resear...
www.photolib.noaa.gov/htmls/fish3569.htm
picasaweb.google.com/.../fig9UL4RTU7u6cPA8Yve2g
www.medievalfantasiesco.com/Revelry.htm
www.flickr.com/photos/21684795@N05/2751029581
flickr.com/.../2958237813/
flickr.com/photos/amanito/3554152611
partywarehouse.co.nz/zen/heaters-electrical-l..
flickr.com/photos/ajawin/3548056276/
www.aucklandartgallery.govt.nz/activities/for..
flickr.com/photos/32912172@N00/3257546496
flickr.com/photos/22887802@N07/3258020120
www.socialappstudio.com/apps/index.php?cmd=25..
Slapback by Ben’s Imaginary Band

Leaking Knowledge

The internet is probably the most powerful invention since the written word; it’s the instant written word. The internet gives a voice to anyone with access to it and practically the whole world has the potential to hear you. You can let the world know your take on a presidential candidate, find someone who will take that old treadmill off your hands, give people an easier way to donate to your charity, and most importantly, the internet is a tool to promote social change. Through the internet people in non-democratized countries can become exposed to different ideas and better standards of living, they can bring awareness to other countries of their social issues and/or injustices, they can provide testimony and visuals to their cause and essentially pull people into that cause. That is how social change comes about: making the most people you can aware of an issue and using the power of those numbers to persuade change. The internet does this in a faster way than any other channel.

The internet has become what television once was for the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement. It brought awareness to the public about how bad the war was getting and how horrific it was and showed the cruel and unjust treatment of African American people that was still going on in many parts of the United States, that awareness brought on feelings of outrage and inspired people to get together to do something to change these issues. The Zapatista revolution has been able to sustain itself since 1994 by turning to the internet and letting people in western nations know about their plight and how they can help. It's a voice that couldn't be spoken without the medium of the internet.
This is what’s going on in the ABC story about Myanmar. The citizens know that by making people aware of their plight, they will be helping induce social change. The internet is the fastest way to spread information, so they use it to their advantage by Tweeting, Facebooking, blogging, and posting or streaming videos from their phones so that it is harder for the government to control the leaking of this information to the rest of the world. And the best thing is that you can usually post things anonymously if you have to. The internet is a tool for social change. It got people in other countries to pay attention and like they showed in the video, I think it was especially helpful to the people’s case that the government wouldn’t allow ABC’s cameras into the country so that the reporter had to become like the citizen journalists of Myanmar. It was a firsthand experience for this outsider who will go back to his country and tell them what it was like.
On a side note in regards to the YouTube Direct article: I think deterring people from becoming citizen journalists in America makes sense because yes, I believe our news has become censored by the companies that own them. So, citizen journalism will expose more real news from real citizens. Also because our news networks have no problem taking things for free and using it to get better ratings (ie. bigger profits) for their station and you should be compensated for your work because they can afford to pay you. However, I think for other countries it’s not so risky to be a citizen journalist posting your news. In cases like Myanmar and China it’s just about central to getting some change to their respective countries.
This is what the whole Google vs. China debate is about: if Google doesn’t continue to censor their internet like they have been… “oh my gosh our citizens might learn about the outside world!” That is the fear of the Chinese government; without the control of the internet, knowledge will spread freely and they’ll lose control of their citizens. As I said before knowledge is power, it can bring change, lots of change and the Chinese government doesn’t want that. One of the contributors to the New York Times article, Timothy B. Lee, pointed out, “Censorship is not primarily about technology. Censorship in China…is the ability to punish people in “real life” when they do something online that the government doesn’t like.”
Lee also suggested that humans will always find ways to get to the information they want. The thing is that, as Ron Deibert said, even kids can get around their parental controls on their computer so it would just be impossible for the Chinese government to think that they will ever have total control over their internet, hard as they may try. Think about it China: File sharing still hasn’t been shut down and it looks like no one will ever be able to get control of it again.
I think people in other countries viewing this content have an obligation to do something to help these countries help get to them what we already can experience: a better quality of life with a democratic and free society. So, I think that contributor, Johnathan Zittrain, was right in suggesting that websites should help people make all sites accessible.
I also thought that Zittrain had a great point in speaking of the value of automatic translation tools and free speech/content. “The world’s people can speak fluently to each other on the net…that will be a quantum advance in the circulation of ideas.” Just think how amazing that would be.

“World Peace”. Image. http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb_270/1211127579lJy6D6.jpg
“Dan Rather Vietnam”. Image. http://www.electronichouse.com/images/slideshow/1966_DanRather_Vietnam.jpg
YouTube Direct: Why Citizen Journalists Shouldn't Care by Jared Newman http://www.pcworld.com/article/182362/youtube_direct_why_citizen_journalists_shouldnt_care.html
NYT Forum on Google and China: http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/can-google-beat-china/
Internet activists push for greater democracy By CIARAN GILES (AP) (TWITTER & Facebook & YouTube as advocacy tools) – Nov 25, 2009 http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html
Myanmar Cell Phone Journalism: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3666307

The Long Tail of Distribution

After watching Chris Anderson explain the Long Tail Model in the Youtube clip and reading Wired magazine’s Long Tail article I could only think of one thing, my boyfriend. Okay, I know that sounds dumb, but let me explain. My boyfriend is a huge Bob Marley fan. Back around the time when we first met, he told me about this rare Bob Marley song that he had heard in a documentary about Bob Marley’s life. He searched everywhere, for a long time for this one song. All of the music stores he went to, including chain and local stores, only carried Marley’s most popular CD’s if not just a greatest hits album, none of which contained this rare track. This song was not even sold on any of the digital music stores like iTunes, Rhapsody, or Zune Marketplace. It was only through a Bob Marley fan site that he was lead to a sort of “legal bootlegging” site that had a list of obscure and rare songs that he found the track he was looking for. I think this is kind of the idea of The Long Tail distribution.

The Long Tail is basically the concept of having almost anything within reach through the internet as opposed to having a limited experience of the rest of the world because of scarcity and physical restrictions. If we only had the ability to go to stores to get the things that we need we would be limiting ourselves only to what is most popular and/or what the store decides to order/carry.

This model has and will continue to change media outlets because they will have more competition than just a few major movie studios, record labels, cable/satellite companies, and newspapers/news shows. Movie studios have to make sure that they take into account the talent and success of the average independent film maker instead of writing them off because they don’t have the advertising dollars because now, those indie films can just be bought and sold online on a personal website of the independent studio/or film. But it’s not all bad for big studios, the long tail can also be a tool for searching out talent. A few weeks ago I read about a kid who posted his scifi video, Ataque de Panico! (Panic Attack!) on YouTube where anyone could view his work ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dadPWhEhVk ). Well, American film studio, Ghost House Pictures saw it and recruited the young film maker to create their next blockbuster film. It worked out for both ends, the indie film maker is now making more money and getting more exposure that he probably ever dreamed and the studio gets to be on the cutting edge with a brand new film maker.

Newspapers are learning from bloggers and online news sites how to keep competing as an industry by getting online. Converting to online newspapers and learning to profit from that will be the biggest struggle and biggest help to the failing newspaper business. For both newspapers and news programs, they are already facing tremendous competition with blogs from average people and/or experts who can give news for free and at anytime to their readers and viewers. “Search engine news” also lessens the likelihood of sales and ratings to newspapers and news programs; Search engine news are the stories on the homepages of popular search engines like Yahoo! or the news widgets you can set on your desktop, basically popular news from random sources that decrease news “brand” loyalty. I think the industry that is really feeling the effects of the long tail model and are actively trying to resist it is the music industry. The music industry already has a distrust of the internet because of the illegal file sharing that has put a dent in the business for years already. However, in the Long Tail article Anderson explains the true costs of digital music and that the music industry is quite frankly being a little greedy by keeping the price according to what it would be for physical distribution. I appreciated how Anderson pointed out that, “If it clearly costs less for a record label to deliver a song online…why shouldn’t the price be less too?” As Anderson states, “Price according to digital costs, not physical ones.” He goes on to explain how people tend to buy more when prices are lower; he doesn’t have to convince me, if I’m in a dollar store I can spend up to $40 without even thinking about it just because all I’m considering is that EVERYTHING IS A DOLLAR! Besides, I buy more music online just because of the fact that I hate having to buy a whole $15 cd when I only like two songs on it and I’ll have more money to buy a lot of singles I like as opposed to that overpriced piece of plastic with only two good songs on it.

The ability of independent production and the ability to reach niche audiences give everyone with internet access a chance to have their work appreciated. The way they operate is greatly changed: there is less worry and hassle in getting your product out to the public, consumer/blogger recommendations and comments can greatly help your chances of success, and potentially you reach the audience of the entire World Wide Web. The Long Tail model seems like a tool of democracy because it provides a voice to both more producers and consumers; producers get to have a chance to be a part of the market, and consumers are now able to give a more clear view of our own culture by giving them a voice too through the way they consume when not restricted by economics. Anderson explains that, “Many of our assumptions about popular taste are actually artifacts of poor supply and demand matching” and this gives us “real-time information about buying trends and public opinion.” The infinite shelf space of the internet seems to be something that works for both consumers and producers and the future of a successful market model.

Sources:
Anderson, Chris. "The Long Tail". WIRED 12.10. 2004. Jan. 23, 2010.
Anderson, Chris. "Identifying 'The Long Tail'". YouTube.com. Jan. 23, 2010
Alvarez, Fede. "Ataque de Panico". YouTube.com. Jan.24, 2010
Long Tail Dinosaur Image. Available http://edgewatertech.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/long-tail.png . Jan.24, 2010
Money Down the Drain. Available http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/billion-dollar-it-waste-and-mismanagement-at-census-bureau.jpg Jan.24 2010