I’ve had someone mention that I got some negative press in the Herald on Sunday a few weeks back. So, will I respond, despite not having seen the article? Well, I already have—Lucire (the New Zealand “master” edition), issue 23, p. 127.
   Hang on, didn’t that run in early May—which would have meant you wrote it in March?
   Well, yes.
   Call it an experiment that worked far too well, thanks to old media and willing new media, all of whom have now provided very useful proof of a theory that’ll fit very well with upcoming addresses on business and 21st century journalism. I instinctively thought I could bait someone in old media into publishing news on trivia—I didn’t know just how difficult or easy it would be.
   For those undergrads who attended my second AUT lecture in late March where this type of incident was discussed soon after I wrote my column, you’ll see the connection, though there won’t be a follow-up lecture this July due to the winter break (there may be one in August, to be confirmed). Rather than repeat a one-hour lecture here in case some of you are reading, I’ll quickly note that it also has consequences for the MySpace service above all others—the genius there is not so much that it exists, but it has become synonymous with an audience that wishes to have, or has, a media presence. Already the social networks are being compartmentalized by consumers—so which one is compatible with your personal brand?
   I’m going to have to bite my tongue when it comes to criticizing American media, when our gossip media, failing to apply due diligence, were so easily baited. But it does make the future lectures easier.
   In any case, it is an indication that the theories behind new media, individual empowerment and the blogosphere being more representative of everyday life as technology democratizes hold water—topics touched on frequently here this year.
   It also highlights that in the age of the “commodification” (or commoditization) of media, the need to maintain high standards remains paramount—and that this is where the press will retain their support. Thus, using a rather different example than the first time this blog got some mainstream-media press—my viewpoints on the Jyllands-Posten Mohammed cartoons in The Guardian—we come full circle to a post written in January 2006. And how, in the age of citizen media, we have not learned too much. Posted by Jack Yan, 00:43  permalink

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