Tomorrow I have the opportunity to facilitate a seminar for journalism students. Preparing the seminar I was surprised how strongly virtual worlds and gaming influence me. No, I don’t believe people will routinely watch and read the news in a World of Warcraft setting, dressed up as Orcs or Trolls. But yes, there is a more subtle but very fundamental influence with implications for the whole media ecosystem.
First I’ll talk about social media. I think it’s still useful to explain the social media ecosystem, mentioning immersive environments/virtual worlds as a way to organize small groups of very interested people, in order to get inspiration and feedback. Blogs, forums and chats are no marginal activities in a newsroom – they’re rapidly becoming core business.
This understanding of social media is just a first step towards gaining insights regarding the major changes taking place in the media. The second part of my presentation will be about the future of media, which sounds rather cliché, but then again, the participants in the seminar are that future.
In a MindMeister map I focus on two compelling aspects which hopefully point out the major change vectors: the social dimension and the real-time interaction. Both aspects lead to engagement of the people formerly known as the audience and thus to the relevance of the media operation.
It really does help to have even a minimal gaming experience. I used to play World of Warcraft for a while and these days I’m getting addicted to a very nice MMO on the iPad: Pocket Legends. The social interaction on forums, blogs and Facebook pages is fun, but what is really exhilirating is participating in a raid, fighting monsters in small groups.
What one experiences is the mental state of flow. Applications of this principle, even for serious news media, are obvious: just compare the action during a chat session with asynchronous commenting, or observe what happens when a comment has to be approved by moderators before it can appear (however, I am strongly in favor of real-time curation and moderation).
In the concept map I try to point out many other similarities between massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGS) and developments in the news media. This has important consequences for the business model and the management style of news media companies. Agile and Scrum suddenly become relevant for newsrooms. Openness of the development and of news production and curating process become crucial. Fast iteration of tools and design elements will become the norm. Theories about ‘the end of management (as we know it)’ become applicable (media more becoming like movie production, with teams which may get together and disband in function of projects and personal interests).
An example of this: the Liquid News project.
Other examples: have a look at crowdSPRING for design services or eLancer which also includes news-writing (thank you Dusan Writer for mentioning those services in an email-conversation). I don’t think my message for the students will be a pessimistic one. Maybe it will get harder to find a job at big mainstream media companies, but the media ecosystem is expanding. What is needed is an understanding of the many different components of that landscape and entrepreneurial talent.
The MindMeister map is a wiki-map, so feel free to add stuff.
This work by rolandlegrand is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
So, in essence, they just explained what already is known and did not discuss anything new?
@Taran nothing terribly new, but I was not aware of that procedure where 25 residents are involved judging cases which can lead to permanent bans.