Comments on: Back to the future http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/08/16/back-to-the-future-4/ by Jeff Jarvis Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:27:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Web Stained Wretch » College media lagging behind http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/08/16/back-to-the-future-4/#comment-357446 Web Stained Wretch » College media lagging behind Mon, 20 Aug 2007 05:32:00 +0000 http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/08/16/back-to-the-future-4/#comment-357446 [...] journos decide their path in high school, shunning the emergence of new media.  Like, duh.  OMFG, say other bloggers.  Kids, you’re sounding stodgy.  Aren’t these young kids supposed [...] [...] journos decide their path in high school, shunning the emergence of new media.  Like, duh.  OMFG, say other bloggers.  Kids, you’re sounding stodgy.  Aren’t these young kids supposed [...]

]]> By: What I’ve Learned So Far » Blog Archive » J-schools fiddle while Rome burns? http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/08/16/back-to-the-future-4/#comment-357223 What I’ve Learned So Far » Blog Archive » J-schools fiddle while Rome burns? Thu, 16 Aug 2007 23:15:57 +0000 http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/08/16/back-to-the-future-4/#comment-357223 [...] Jeff Jarvis thinks so. I’m prone to agree. I was talking a while back with a friend of mine who’s a veteran newspaper features writer. He’s very good and has umpteen thousand clips to his name, plus he’s an adaptive type, so he’ll be fine no matter what happens. But he admitted that he has no idea where his newspaper — or the broader newspaper business — will be in five or ten or twenty years. [...] [...] Jeff Jarvis thinks so. I’m prone to agree. I was talking a while back with a friend of mine who’s a veteran newspaper features writer. He’s very good and has umpteen thousand clips to his name, plus he’s an adaptive type, so he’ll be fine no matter what happens. But he admitted that he has no idea where his newspaper — or the broader newspaper business — will be in five or ten or twenty years. [...]

]]> By: Don http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/08/16/back-to-the-future-4/#comment-357207 Don Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:08:14 +0000 http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/08/16/back-to-the-future-4/#comment-357207 <a href="http://moliere.byu.edu/digital/life_tv.html" rel="nofollow">Gilder</a> argues that text works better than images. <blockquote> Scripture declares that in the beginning was the word. There was no mention of the image. Today in information technology, the word still widely prevails. In 1992, books, newspapers, and magazines generated some $73 billion in sales, compared to television revenues of $57 billion. In general, images are valuable as an enhancement to words. As Robert Lucky of Bellcore has pointed out, images are not in themselves usually an efficient mode of communication. In <i>Silicon Dreams</i>, just released in paperback in a new edition, Lucky writes that after an evening of television, "we sink into bed, bloated with pictorial bits, starved for information." People who gush that a picture is worth 1,000 words usually fail to point out that it may well take a million computer "words" to send or store it. In a multimedia encyclopedia, such as Microsoft's Encarta, some 10,000 images take up 90 percent of the bits, but supply perhaps a hundredth of the information. With the pictures alone the encyclopedia is nearly worthless; with the words alone, you still have a valuable encyclopedia. Most of the work and the worth are in the words. Supremely the masters of words, newspapers can add cosmetic pictures, sounds, and video clips far more easily than TVs or game machines can add reporting depth, expertise, research, and cogent opinion. More profoundly, the domonetics of the new technologies strongly favors text-based communications. Video is most effective in conveying shocks and sensations and appealing to prurient interests of large miscellaneous audiences. Images easily excel in blasting through to the glandular substrates of human community; nothing like a body naked or bloody or both to arrest the eye and forestall the zapper. </blockquote> Allow me to mod your "There is no such thing as a print journalist anymore." meme into "There is no such thing as print literacy anymore." IMHO literacy evolved from a simple mostly linear experience of s l o w l y reading printed material into a digital nonlinear experience. Gilder argues that text works better than images.

Scripture declares that in the beginning was the word. There was no mention of the image. Today in information technology, the word still widely prevails. In 1992, books, newspapers, and magazines generated some $73 billion in sales, compared to television revenues of $57 billion.

In general, images are valuable as an enhancement to words. As Robert Lucky of Bellcore has pointed out, images are not in themselves usually an efficient mode of communication. In Silicon Dreams, just released in paperback in a new edition, Lucky writes that after an evening of television, “we sink into bed, bloated with pictorial bits, starved for information.”

People who gush that a picture is worth 1,000 words usually fail to point out that it may well take a million computer “words” to send or store it. In a multimedia encyclopedia, such as Microsoft’s Encarta, some 10,000 images take up 90 percent of the bits, but supply perhaps a hundredth of the information. With the pictures alone the encyclopedia is nearly worthless; with the words alone, you still have a valuable encyclopedia. Most of the work and the worth are in the words. Supremely the masters of words, newspapers can add cosmetic pictures, sounds, and video clips far more easily than TVs or game machines can add reporting depth, expertise, research, and cogent opinion.

More profoundly, the domonetics of the new technologies strongly favors text-based communications. Video is most effective in conveying shocks and sensations and appealing to prurient interests of large miscellaneous audiences. Images easily excel in blasting through to the glandular substrates of human community; nothing like a body naked or bloody or both to arrest the eye and forestall the zapper.

Allow me to mod your “There is no such thing as a print journalist anymore.” meme into “There is no such thing as print literacy anymore.” IMHO literacy evolved from a simple mostly linear experience of s l o w l y reading printed material into a digital nonlinear experience.

]]> By: Jay Fallon http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/08/16/back-to-the-future-4/#comment-357196 Jay Fallon Thu, 16 Aug 2007 15:43:21 +0000 http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/08/16/back-to-the-future-4/#comment-357196 "We don’t face the same problems economically that the industry is facing." An easy excuse when one is living a sheltered, academic life with an endless queue of paying customers and the benefits of an easy work schedule and tenure. It's up to the students themselves to break out from the norm and discover new mediums in which they can (will have to) work and perfect their craft. Those who can adapt will survive, those who cannot will sell real estate. “We don’t face the same problems economically that the industry is facing.”

An easy excuse when one is living a sheltered, academic life with an endless queue of paying customers and the benefits of an easy work schedule and tenure. It’s up to the students themselves to break out from the norm and discover new mediums in which they can (will have to) work and perfect their craft. Those who can adapt will survive, those who cannot will sell real estate.

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