Preparing for the Coming Era of Participatory News
“Meet the Millennials, the 71 million children of Baby Boomers who are coming of age. They download music into mobile players. The expression “You sound like a broken record” means nothing to them. On their cell phones, they never hear a busy signal or fail to get an answer. Pearl Harbor and Vietnam are the stuff of movies; September 11 is a defining event. MTV informs them the way the Big Three Networks informed their parents. They don’t read newspapers. Computer use and Internet connectivity are mainstream activities. They consider the special effects in the vintage film Star Wars bogus.
The Millennials are acoustic. They respond to graphics, sound, action, interaction, and immersive activities. Through their experiences, they begin to shape the future of news on a small, inter-connected planet….
As an interconnected society moves toward participating in the news, the Brotherhood of News seeks to protect its values and exert its control. Just as zero changed the equation shaping humanity’s vision of the universe, accessible media changes the equation that shapes news and informs society. Everyone is a journalist in the age of access. But for most news organizations, collaboration with their audience is an irrational concept, a dangerous idea” [Online Journalism Review, via Tomalak’s Realm]
A tad over the top, but it’s still a good explanation of where news may be heading.