New Media

I've got one word for you.

Wow.

It is so good to be amongst old friends and colleagues here at the 4th National Conference on Media Reform.

Where to start?

I am fired up.

I am sitting in the Best Western hotel room here in Minneapolis (I like this town, and affectionately refer to it as "Minny") with my old friend - ACME co-founder and co-president Bob McCannon.

We are preparing for ACME's first-ever TEACH-IN at the National Conference on Media Reform.

ACME has attended all four of Free Press' National Media Reform conferences, beginning with the one in Madison back in 2003, running workshops and an exhibit booth advocating the importance of media education for media reform.

From Free Speech TV:

The crux of Tom Regan's thesis (article below) is: "The reality in today's world of online journalism is that both old and new views count, and traditional journalists ignore this at their own peril."

He defines "new" news views as youth interests such as stories about the iPhone and "old" views as NY Times stories about the Iraq war. I see it as more than youth vs aged.

Here's a question. Should the news try to be objective? There is no doubt that Olbermann is a brilliant, articulate, analytic genius whose passion tends to agree with mine, and I love him. But, should we evolve toward a news environment that is totally composed of competing one-sided shows (like Olbermann and O'Reilly)? That seems to be the direction we are heading.

Brad Seawell of the MIT Communications Forum writes to note that a free public forum on Thurs., Sept. 20 launches a new center studying the relationship between emerging media and civic engagement. A key area of inquiry is how virtual worlds such as SecondLife affect civic engagement in the real world.
READ MORE: http://newshare.typepad.com/nenf/2007/09/virtual-vs-real.html

Happy post-Labor Day, friends.

Here's a provocative editorial focused on online gaming. As always, the question of "trade offs" intrigues me - if one spends hours a day in online worlds, what is one missing in the real world?

And does this matter?

Certainly, all of us who live, work and play in Cyberspace maintain relationships, of sorts, there. And some online games demand problem-solving skills, exhibit nuanced narratives, and so forth.

Here's the editorial: