We The Media

Dan Gillmor

O'Reilly, ISBN 0596007337 The evolution of journalism, after the healing of the network cyclone that devastated production and use over the past decade, seems to have arrived at a critical point. On the one hand big media conglomerates, flattened on the vacuous show continuous request of the capital that sustains them. On the other aggressive (often solitary) 'columnist' that the columns of blogs and sites linking continuously updated, build another infosphere, beautifully built from the bottom, even capable of collecting donations from the web to fund bold reportage. The book describes an exciting path of awareness of the potential of online journalism, understood as a process of building content through a continuous and direct contact with readers, summarized by the author as a fundamental transformation "from 'conference' in conversation." But if concrete results of virtuous processes triggered by information sharing are obvious, and equally valuable are the rules to follow (for example assume that the audience knows more and more of the writer), less certain is the prospect of a half- open and diverse as the network. The author, who grew up and matured in traditional journalism is mired in old questions, such as 'credible sources', identity theft and overloading of information to manage. It should therefore be noted that the multiple identities, anonymity and the creation of fictitious identities, as well as direct and destabilizing media operations, often also have contributed to information tout cour fresh gusts of wind energy, allowing expressions that would otherwise have been impossible to demonstrate. And if on the one hand, therefore, seems to develop a populous group of outsiders with the ability to describe and comment on a specific amount of information next to the exhaustiveness on the other hand the enormous magma in which they should be stirring to derive the their sap, is the concrete shapeless humus in which lurk valuable suggestions for innovation and ideas that unhinge even more journalism as it has been understood until now. For this reason the main paradox of the network (to be everything and nothing) is constantly torn by those who, thanks to its advanced compass, continues to make public his personal journey and documented, in the best ethics of journalism history and in spite of the powers in the calcified average of large numbers.