We Media Global Forum Goes Live Online on May 3-4

For those of you who prefer to hang out in pajamas, you can participate in the Global Forum from home. We Media GOES LIVE on May 3 and 4, at 9:00 am GMT / 4:00 am EST, on the conference Web site ), with live video, blog reports, live-chat discussions and podcasts. You can tune […]

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Will the U.S. Get the Democratic Media We Deserve?

The answer is that for the short-term–even in the broadband era–it isn’t likely. First, our largest media companies have a current political agenda that will further weaken the institution of journalism. They now seek – at the FCC and in Congress – to remove what remains of critical safeguards designed to ensure the public receives […]

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The Democratization of Media: Icarus Retold

The news media is often referred to as the Fourth Estate, alongside the other three Estates (church, nobility and merchant class) described by Edmund Burke, that comprised the body politic of 18th-century France. The Estates represented the acme of the social hierarchy – the powerful, established elite who determined how everyone else should worship and […]

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Staying Connected Across Time

In his kickoff post, Florian talks about well-connected societies using a “range of different media types available to them to exchange news, establish and maintain connections and establish history.” The last word, history, made me think about connectedness across time through your personal history. I use new media in so many different ways to stay […]

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Connectedness and Technology – Evolutionary Siblings?

Connected? Has the Net been Darwinian in its brief evolution, and are the characteristics of a networked society akin to different genus/ nationalities, seemingly different people within a network sharing common characteristics or ideals? I ask this with regard to the tell tale signs that may be staring at us and what will probably emerge […]

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Three Futurist Ideas

Florian Brody asks: Should we wait for a random start-up to come up with some new web technology to find out about the next major change of the media that defines our society? From Florian’s discussion leading up to that question, he seems to really be asking “What’s missing, what holes are there, what opportunities […]

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Trust

Thank you for the invitation to weigh in. Trust is as old as the human race, as is its opposite, betrayal. Why? You can get what you want through authority – “he or she who has the gold makes the rules” – or you can solicit what you want through trusted relationships. Trust is a […]

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Where Do Trust and Connectedness Overlap?

Last week, we talked about Trust in the Media (as well as trust generally). This week we have been talking about connectedness. Is there a relationship between the two? Karen Stephenson, a social-network business consultant and friend of the Media Center (I first met Karen at a Media Center sponsored Symposium last year) would argue […]

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Quality Connections

Judging from our own information-age society (vs. Sub-Saharan Africa for example), we are technologically over-connected. Especially now, with 33 million blogs on top of the splintered news stand, digital TV, and, well, you name it. Florian makes some great points which in some way include the thought of “are we better off today than we […]

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