Booknote on Media Work

As far as I know, reviews of Media Work have yet to appear in academic journals (I really hope they do... can't wait to see what I need to do better next time). Goldsmith's Natalie Fenton did a great job of critiqueing the book in the Times Higher Education Supplement of 23 November 2007. There she writes about what I feel in a nutshell summarizes my own struggle with the workstyles in the media industries:

"[...] we discover that structure (market) and agency (informal networks) coexist in organisations; that production includes commercial ends and creative means; that it is too simplistic to pitch creativity against commerce or flexibility against stability. These are valid reminders of the complexity of the world of work, but they leave us wanting and skirt around the critical question of power - where it resides, how it is manifest, who wields it and with what consequences."

In the most recent issue (23/1, pp.124-5) of the European Journal of Communication, the book has been briefly discussed in a booknote, with some critical and some supportive comments (of course, publisher Polity only printed the positive lines on its website). As that is a "closed" journal, I'm taking the liberty to reproduce the booknote here:

Mark Deuze, Media Work. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007.

"In this book on media work and working in the media, Mark Deuze argues that understanding the media is not a side-activity of sociology or economics, but central to gaining analytical sense of contemporary life around the world, and most particularly in western capitalist democracies. Examples of features of life for which the cultural industries are indicative include the management of creativity, the culturalization of work and the defining of professional identities. Deuze maps out the conditions of media work today, focusing especially on mainstream news journalism, major studio film production, leading computer and video game development, advertising and marketing communications. He draws on material from trade as well as scholarly publications, practitioner weblogs and e-zines, and in-depth interviews with media workers in the US, the Netherlands, Finland, New Zealand and South Africa. Deuze tends to exaggerate the degree of identity between contemporary media work and other forms of work or indeed between these and everyday cultural life. He also draws rather uncritically on Bauman's social theory and in particular his conception of the ‘liquidity’ of contemporary modernity. At the same time, Deuze ably synthesizes a wide range of sources, writes lucidly even as he marshals a considerable amount of detail, moves unjarringly between different media sectors and offers a valuable synoptic account of the major characteristic features of media work in the so-called digital age."

Media Work in Amsterdam

Just got back from a quick trip to The Netherlands, hanging out in Leiden, visiting cool people at media companies such as RTL Nieuws, the Telegraaf Media Group, EenVandaag, and the NOS Journaal, and giving a couple of Media Work related talks in Amsterdam.

Of one of those talks, on a sunny Tuesday afternoon (May 13) at the University of Amsterdam, Michael Stevenson did a phenomenal write-up, arguably the best summary of the main premises of the book I've ever seen, and better than I could have done it! Nice little addition Michael made by relating my concerns about the way the digital revolution heralded by academics and pundits gets experienced by the creative workers in less than ideal ways to Douglas Coupland's jPod problem.

Obama in Bloomington

And yes, that is me on the right, on stage with Obama, instead of applauding or cheering wielding my camera just as the batteries went dead on me. Media life posterboy, all right.

Picture information: "Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., center in white, arrives at a rally in Bloomington, Ind.", Wednesday, April 30, 2008. (copyright: AP Photo/Jae C. Hong).

First Obama, now an Earthquake (in Bloomington)

Barack Obama in Bloomington (IN)

Very cool - just got back from Italy (great time, wonderful people), and here's Barack Obama visiting our town, walking the streets, hanging out...

Media Work in Milano

I'm on my way to Milan, Italy for a talk at the "Global Screens" conference at the Triennale Design Museum (drop by if you can: its at the Viale Alemagna).

My presentation will focus on the promises and perils of convergence culture for journalism, with a particular focus on the emerging digital culture in Italy. Over the last few days, several prominent Italian bloggers - Luca Conti (Pandemia), Dario Salvelli (Talk About Technology), and Alberto D'Ottavi (Infoservi) - have been kind enough to give me advice, tips and information about the situation in their country - and in doing so, suggested something really powerful about the potential of non-mainstream, bottom-up collaboration and co-creation enabled online.

Some points I will cover in the presentation:

- the ongoing labor disputes in Italy and elsewhere between newsworkers and employers (in Italy: between the FNSI and FIEG) regarding the increase of "atypical" working arrangements in especially digital journalism

- a comparison of multimedia newsroom designs and Bentham's Panopticon, relevant in the context of increased worker monitoring and surveillance associated with new technologies in media companies

- the pros (journalism as a conversation) and cons (media use turned into free labor) of citizen journalism and other forms of User-Generated Content (UGC) in the gathering, editing, and distribution of news.

- future perspectives on large scale broadband mobile internet access, focusing on startups in the multimedia social network domain (ex.: Zingku, Bliin, Jaiku, Floobs, Meemi).

Its all part of the 2008 tour...

Media Layoffs, Staff Cuts, Hiring, and New Power

Somewhat depressing, yet also interesting: keeping track of media layoffs and staff cuts. In the United States, this can be done for example through Poynter's Romenesko's news service (specifically for the news industry) and the I Want Media layoffs pages.

What is especially compelling is the discourse around such layoffs, and the shift from print to digital - however, that shift is not equal: loss of print jobs is not matched with gains in digital.

Furthermore, my own research and that of many others suggests that the shift in symbolic power within media organizations to the digital side of things corresponds with less control in the hands of editors and creative as "the show" increasingly gets organized around not just hardware and software, but the IT-savvy people (sometimes "techies") that control the machines. See for example case studies in the global news industry (note: I had the privilege of contributing a chapter to that book, "Making Online News", edited by David Domingo and Chris Paterson).

This not to say tech-savvy people within the media are evil, but they used to be at the bottom of the informal hierarchy. With their newfound power, will they share? Of course not. In the informal nature of workforce relationships throughout the creative industries, symbolic power, (peer review-based) status and prestige are your primarcy source of social capital.

And that kind of capital is switching to digital. In the words of AdRants: "Sadly, in a technologically-driven medium, the creative element sometimes gets a bum deal."

As I wrote: its somewhat depressing, yet also very interesting.

Media Work in Second Life

Photo courtesy of Mark Bell

Media Work Tour 2008 Dates

Well, after last year's "tour" things are shaping up wonderfully for a round of meetings, talks, presentations, workshops, and keynotes on topics related to Media Work in 2008. Thanks to everyone who has been kind enough to invite me or is willing to host me along the way! I'll update and specify the list as I go along, but as always: hope to see you there, drop by if you have the chance, and if you have an event in the neighborhood don't hesitate to contact me.

February 12
SUNY Buffalo, USA

February 27
Indiana University School of Informatics, USA

April 2-3
Catholic University of Milan/Triennale, Alta Scuola in Media, Comunicazione, Spettacolo conference, Italy

April 28-29
Media Management and Transformation Centre, Jönköping, Sweden

May 2-3
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

May 8
Free University Amsterdam, The Netherlands

May 13
New Media @ University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

[CANCELLED] Four Freedoms Debat FreeVoice, Middelburg, The Netherlands

May 22-25
ICA Conference, Montreal, Canada

June 18
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

June 20
University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

June 24
Griffiths University, Brisbane, Australia

26-28 June
Creative Industries Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

July 1
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sydney, Australia (presentation from noon to 1.30pm)

July 2
Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, Sydney, Australia (UTS, Building 2, 15 Broadway, Level 4 (entrance level), Room 11, from 6pm onwards)

September 1
Institute for Media and Communications Management, University of St.Gallen, Switzerland

September 2-3
MAZ The Swiss School of Journalism, Lucerne, Switzerland

September 4
Leiden University, The Netherlands

Media Workforce Shrinking

Sometimes you do not want to be right. And I certainly do not want to claim credit. To a large extent many have written about it, signaled it at various talks and debates, blogged about it, and heard about it from many sources throughout the industry: the media workforce is steadily shrinking.

Via Patrick Phillips, editor at IWantMedia, comes this report on AdAge: "Media Work Force Sinks to 15-Year Low. Newspaper Slump and the Shift to Digital, Direct Take Toll on Employment." This follows last year's reports by IWantMedia and by Challenger, Gray & Christmas (as reported by UPI) on media industry job cuts, signaling a rise of 88% of job cuts throughout the US media industry in 2006 over the year before.

Interestingly, AdAge reports that the only area in the media industry that is booming, is that of marketing consultant... Indeed: all the creative talent is disappearing into the void of contingent, uncontracted, farmed out, atypical, and otherwise sans papiers labor (the kind that works "on spec" and does not show up in census data or workforce statistics).

Jobs are being are offshored (advertising holding firms sending creative accounts to China and Brazil, networks moving TV investments to India, newspapers sending their online, business news, and acquisition departments overseas in attempt to "remote control journalism"), outsourced (to citizen-consumers under the heading of "user generated content"), or alltogether deleted.

Part of what i additionally talk about in Media Work is this false notion of "replacement" of old media jobs by new media ones often claimed by web-pundits, but in the real world new media jobs are added at a much slower pace (and with substiantially worse labor conditions) than older ones are deleted.

Perhaps it is time for worldwide organized networks of creative workers. Perhaps the often-discussed "talent wars" in the business sector should get the attention of managers in the creative industries, as the vast majority of CEOs in the knowledge industries seem to be increasingly convinced that talent acquisition, retention and development is the key to future success and indeed survial (link to Accenture's 2006 High Performance Workforce report).

At this rate, we'll all be stuck in an endless reality TV and (its offspring) UGC nightmare. Forever.

Backup Profile Page

At the moment I am in the process of updating and reworking my faculty profile page, especially with the purpose to provide easier (and free) access to all my publications and to provide students with some guidance and links to places online where they can find information about jobs and internships in the US media. I will use this entry as a backup, so bear with me...

Publications

Publications of my work include a number of books, and articles in journals such as New Media & Society, Journalism Studies, the International Journal of Cultural Studies, The Information Society, and Media Culture & Society. For an overview of these publications, see the listing via Google Scholar. Several articles have appeared in (or are under review at) open access journals such as eJournalist, First Monday, and the Journal of Media Sociology.

Save most of my books, all my publications can be downloaded directly and for free from Indiana University’s open access digital repository IUScholarWorks. There you can also find published works by many other IU researchers in the field of (new) media.

For instant access to all my publications, please follow [LINK TO COME SOON]. Of course, I always sincerely appreciate any thoughts or feedback you may have.

Below is a list of my books with direct links to the publisher pages, BOL or Amazon, whichever place lists the lowest price. If you are looking for a specific chapter from any of these works (for example to including in a reader or class materials), please contact me via e-mail, I would be happy to provide you with a PDF copy.

Deuze, M. (edited volume; work in progress). Managing Media Work. London: Sage.

Deuze, M. (under contract; planned for 2010). Beyond Journalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Deuze, M. (work in progress; planned for 2009). Leven in Media. Amsterdam: Nieuw Amsterdam.

Deuze, M. (2008). Guerilla winkels, het SoCo Experiment en een volgende Big Bang. Leiden: Leiden University Press. Full text of this (Dutch language) book can be downloaded for free here.

Deuze, M. (2007). Media Work. Cambridge: Polity Press. Chapter five, on the profession of journalism, can be downloaded for free here. Publisher website (including links to buy the book).

Blanken, H., Deuze, M. (2007). PopUp. Amsterdam: Atlas. Website uitgever (met bestel links)

Deuze, M. (2004). Wat is Journalistiek? Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Website uitgever (met bestelformulier).

Blanken, H., Deuze, M. (eds.) (2003). De Media Revolutie. Amsterdam: Boom. Two individual chapters of this (Dutch language) edited volume are available for free online. Download chapters on online journalism by Pleijter & Deuze; and on multimedia users by Van Driel. Bestelbaar via Bol.com.

Deuze, M. (2002). Journalists in The Netherlands. Amsterdam: Aksant/New Jersey: Transaction. Full text of this book available via the Digital Academic Repository of the University of Amsterdam.

Teaching

At the Department of Telecommunications I generally teach the University Division-course Media Life (T101; open to all IU students), Global Media Issues (T413), and Creative Industries (T451) in some form or another. On a graduate level, you can expect me to be teaching courses related to the history, organization and culture of media work (T505 Media Organizations). Especially in the 400-level courses, the issues as mentioned above will be the most important topics on the class agenda. In T451, part of the classtime is spent on a community service learning project in collaboration with Rhino's Youth Center and All-Ages Music Club in Bloomington, Indiana.

Media Work: Students

As my classes and studies are primarily focused on the working lives of media professionals and thus on media work in general, I consistently try to give students at Indiana and Leiden (and elsewhere) grounded and realistic advice on what it is like to work and to get (or keep) work in the creative industries in general, and the media in particular.

It is perfectly possible to build a course list that will prepare for a career in the media. The best advice I can give you is not to pick courses because you think they will help you landing a job, but to pick courses about topics, issues, skills and competences that you -individually, personally- are deeply passionate about. As the media industry is a precarious, unpredictable, fast-changing and generally crazy place, the thing that will always keep you going is your own passion. Anything else will perhaps land you a job, but will not empower you to be creative, to do what you want to do, to be among those an organization cannot afford to let go when the next round of cost-cutting lay-offs comes around.

Please check out my Facebook profile page and my weblog (Deuzeblog) for regular postings and links to news related to work and jobs in the media industry. I encourage students to contact me for information and feedback on internship and job opportunities, and especially appreciate it if young professionals and/or alumni keep in touch to tell their story on working in the media. For those who are looking for resources for finding jobs and internships in the media, please check the following websites listed below. Of course, take good care before contacting the addresses and people found here. Do not consider these links and organizations as my personal recommendations; these are just some often-mentioned websites in the US media industry for job- and internship seekers.

Advertising
American Assocication of Advertising Agencies Jobs: LINK
International Advertising Association New York Jobs: LINK
AdWeek Jobs: LINK

Film, Radio & TV
Film & TV Jobs: LINK
Careerpage for the Broadcasting Industry: LINK
Hollywood Reporter Jobs: LINK
Entertainment Careers: LINK
National Association of Broadcasters Career Center: LINK
Showbiz Jobs: LINK
TV and Radio Jobs: LINK
Broadcast Employment Services: LINK
Broadcast Executive Search: LINK
Variety Careers: LINK
Indiana Broadcasters: LINK

Journalism
Journalism Jobs: LINK
Journalism Jobs Links: LINK
J-Jobs & Internships Page (including Career Help): LINK

Computer and Video Games
Game Jobs: LINK
Interactive Selection Game Recruiter: LINK
Gamasutra Jobs: LINK
Creative Heads: LINK
Games Jobs News: LINK
Game Career Guide: LINK

Media (general)
Mass Media Jobs: LINK
Media Job Links: LINK
MediaLine: LINK
Media Jobs: LINK

Please contact me for more information on any of the issues mentioned in this post.

My Radio Show on WIUX

Some of you may or may not know this, but I host a weekly radio show on the student-run radio station WIUX here on campus. The show is called Global Riffs and features indie music (anything from rap, metal, punk, techno, grunge, pop and inbetween) from all over the world. I often have studio guests: foreign students or faculty members (such as myself) talking about their home country and playing their favorite tunes.

If you are in town (Bloomington, Indiana) tune in to 99.1 FM, or log in and listen to our online live stream.

Global Riffs at WIUX is on every Friday from 4 to 6pm EST (if you want to check when to tune in where you live, check the World Clock).

You are also more than welcome to IM me during the show with comments and/or requests: station ID is wiuxrequest.

Media Work @ SUNY Buffalo

Convergence Culture

Perhaps you will remember that on 20 July 2006 I posted a call for papers for a special issue of the journal Convergence that MIT's Henry Jenkins and I would be guest co-editing on the topic of convergence culture, based on his book of the same title, and as a theme running throughout my recent book on how convergence culture affects media work.

Well, the special issue is out now (February 2008), and we're very excited about the stellar authors and papers in the issue. Indeed, we received many more excellent submissions than we had room for in this issue, many of which papers will appear in forthcoming issues of the journal.

Of course, this being academic publishing, all the content is hidden behind lock and key - something that one of the authors in our issue, danah boyd, justifiably takes issue with. Indeed, danah calls for a boycott of academic journals that "lock down" their content.

Another author in our issue, Christy Dena, has been cool enough to build a special site around the special issue, including a version of her contribution - a piece on Alternate Reality Games.

Of course, if you are looking for one or more of the pieces in this special issue and your library does not have print or electronic access to the journal, do not hesitate to contact me (mdeuze at indiana dot edu). To provide a bit of context for the issue, here are the opening paragraphs of our introductory essay on convergence culture.

Introduction to: Special Issue on Convergence Culture

by Henry Jenkins and Mark Deuze

"We are living at a moment of profound and prolonged media transition: the old scripts by which media industries operated or consumers absorbed media content are being rewritten. As those changes occur, we need to work across the historic divide in academic research between work on media industries and work on media audiences. Media companies can no longer be meaningfully studied in the absence of an understanding of how they relate to their consumers. By the same token, consumers, audiences, fan communities, users, call them what you wish, can no longer be meaningfully understood without a better understanding of the economic and technological contexts within which they operate. The essays contained within this special issue of Convergence, each in its own way, represents a raproachment between industry studies and audience research.

In this context, media can be seen as the key drivers and accelerators of a growing integration between culture and commerce. Brought down to first principles, media mediate – between people, communities, organizations, institutions, and industries. In the classic model, a small number of media companies were homogenizing culture through their dominance over the means of production and distribution of media content. And individuals were defined through their roles as "consumers" rather than being seen as producers of -- or better yet, participants within -- the surrounding culture. Over the past several decades, the expansion of new media resources has led to what Yochai Benkler has described as a "hybrid media ecology" within which commercial, amateur, governmental, nonprofit, educational, activist and other players interact with each other in ever more complex ways. Each of these groups has the power to produce and distribute content and each of these groups are being transformed by their new power and responsibilities in this emerging media ecology. And in the process, the focus on individual consumers is giving way to a new emphasis on the social networks through which production and consumption occurs. In this context, it may no longer be of value to talk about personalized media; perhaps, we might better discuss socialized media. We might see YouTube, Second Life, Wikipedia, Flickr, and MySpace, to cite just a few examples, as meeting spaces between a range of grassroots creative communities, each pursuing their own goals, but each helping to shape the total media environment.

These shifts in the communication infrastructure bring about contradictory pulls and tugs within our culture. On the one hand, this "democratization" of media use signals a broadening of opportunities for individuals and grassroots communities to tell stories and access stories others are telling, to present arguments and listen to arguments made elsewhere, to share information and learn more about the world from a multitude of other perspectives. On the other hand, the media companies seek to extend their reach by merging, co-opting, converging and synergizing their brands and intellectual properties across all of these channels. In some ways, this has concentrated the power of traditional gatekeepers and agenda setters and in other ways, it has disintegrated their tight control over our culture.

Convergence therefore must be understood as both a top-down corporate-driven process and a bottom-up consumer-driven process. Media companies are learning how to accelerate the flow of media content across delivery channels to expand revenue opportunities, broaden markets and reinforce consumer loyalties and commitments. Users are learning how to master these different media technologies to bring the flow of media more fully under their control and to interact (and co-create) with other users. Sometimes, these two forces reinforce each other, creating closer, more rewarding, relations between media producers and consumers. Sometimes the two forces conflict, resulting in constant renegotiations of power between these competing pressures on the new media ecology."

Table of Contents

Henry Jenkins and Mark Deuze: Convergence Culture

danah boyd: Facebook's Privacy Trainwreck: Exposure, Invasion, and Social Convergence

Neil Perryman: Doctor Who and the Convergence of Media: A Case Study in Transmedia Storytelling

Christy Dena: Emerging Participatory Culture Practices: Player-Created Tiers in Alternate Reality Games

Hector Postigo: Video Game Appropriation through Modifications: Attitudes Concerning Intellectual Property among Modders and Fans

Daren C. Brabham: Crowdsourcing as a Model for Problem Solving: An Introduction and Cases

Larissa Hjorth: Being Real in the Mobile Reel: A Case Study on Convergent Mobile Media as Domesticated New Media in Seoul, South Korea

Gunn Sara Enli: Redefining Public Service Broadcasting: Multi-Platform Participation

Mr. Oizo's Flat Beat f. Flat Eric

You know, I have no idea why - this isn't even my kind of genre or anything - but for months now I have had this tune and clip in my head. Finally found it online (hurray for the interwebs)... might as well share it.

Gratis Download Oratie

[in Dutch] De formele, uitgeschreven tekst van mijn oratie (van 18 januari ll.) is nu gratis te downloaden vanaf de Website van de Universiteit van Leiden en natuurlijk direct via deze link (PDF). Titel: "Guerilla winkels, het SoCo Experiment en een volgende Big Bang. Over de rol van nieuwe media en de toekomst van journalistiek in een vloeibare samenleving."

De tekst wordt uitgegeven in een serie 'Oraties' bij Leiden University Press. Mijn plan is de tekst in de loop van dit jaar uit te werken tot een boeklang (Nederlandstalig) manuscript, waarvoor ik zowel nog tijd als een passende titel zoek - iemand een goede tip?

Media Work back on Amazon

Very excited about the fact that as of this week Media Work (Polity Press, 2007) not only is in its third printing, but it is also back on Amazon in the US after a brief absence due to a system error in the distribution network. I'll be heading to Australia and New Zealand over the Summer (2008) to promote the book, so if you're interested... I'd be happy to come down and hang out and talk about what it is like to work in the media today!

Independent Minds

[in Dutch] Ik kende dit online magazine nog niet, maar het lijkt er eentje om van dichtbij te volgen: Independent Minds. Enneh... ik schrijf dat heus niet omdat ze zo goed waren om middels een vraaggesprek wat aandacht te besteden aan mijn oratie en het werk bij Journalistiek en Nieuwe Media in Leiden.

Best Companies to Work for? Not Media

Fortune has released its annual list of 100 Best Companies to Work For (in the United States).

Of course, not a single media company in the list. That just kills me. This is the industry relying on creativity, innovation, talent and entrepreneurship more so than any other - and at the same time it is arguably the shittiest industry to work in if one considers the way it treats its workers (writers' strike, anyone?).

On the other hand, three of the 'Fab Four' companies are in the list: Microsoft (#86), Yahoo (#87), and Google (#1). Not AOL. What can we learn from this?

I'd like to see a list of best places to work for in the various media industries (advertising, film and tv production, computer and video games, news). Let's start compiling reports!

Working in the Media

Great piece by Richard Sambrook, Director of BBC Global News, on what it is like to work in the media - yesterday, today, and after 2015 (posted January 14 on his blog/linkdump, SacredFacts).

Some quotes... on what it was like to build a career in the 20th century (anomalous) heyday of mass media: "Find an organisation you like and dig in for the long haul." Then, on what it is like right now: "Your last boss offered you a corner desk to get you to stay - wtf? You never sit at one anyway."

So what is it like tomorrow? "You have to have a network of contacts to thrive - there is no distinction between home and work."

A funny - if not slightly cynical - view of the future, that is completely 'hyperindividualized', yet also strangely 'social' in that it privileges collective intelligence over solipsistic expertise.

Interviews Friesch Dagblad & IKON radio

Zondagochtend 20 januari zond de IKON radio een leuk interview uit van verslaggever Wieger Hemmer en mij, dat hij vrijdagmiddag de 18de opnam. Je kan het 20 minuten durende gesprek terugluisteren (en -lezen) op de site van De Andere Wereld van de IKON. Erg tof dat hij de tijd nam om het verhaal over de journalistiek veel breder te trekken.

Op woensdag 16 januari publiceerde het Friesch Dagblad het volgende interview met mij in de krant - helaas niet online. De interviewer stuurde me de volgende tekst, op basis van ons telefoongesprek en de tekst van mijn oratie.

Wetenschapper Mark Deuze over internetcultuur: 'Iedereen zijn eigen uitgever'

Internet maakt zelfexpressie en samenwerking mogelijk, maar veroorzaakt ook narcisme en paranoia. Dat zegt Mark Deuze. Sinds vorig jaar bekleedt hij de leerstoel Journalistiek en Nieuwe Media aan de Universiteit van Leiden.

Door Jurgen Tiekstra

Hoe groot is volgens u de invloed van de nieuwe media, zoals internet, op het dagelijks leven van de westerse mens?

In mijn werk zie ik de nieuwe media niet zozeer als veroorzaker, maar als aanjager van ontwikkelingen die al bestaan. Of je het nou hebt over internet, mobiele telefonie of iets anders. De belangrijkste sociaalculturele ontwikkelingen van de laatste twintig jaar zijn individualisering en globalisering. In de jaren '70 vond een verschuiving plaats van wat we belangrijk vinden. Het ging van materiële zaken, een dak boven ons hoofd en boter op ons brood, naar postmateriële zaken als zelfexpressie.

De populariteit van weblogs is veelzeggend. In de jaren '70 hadden we die uitlaatklep iet. Je kon een nieuwsberichtje in de buurt verspreiden met het kopieerapparaat van je baas of een piratenzender beginnen. Maar met het einde van de massamedia heeft iedereen zijn eigen medium.

Toen internet in de jaren '90 breed toegankelijk werd, kon u toen al voorspellen hoe groot het zou worden?

De eerste keer dat ik echt met het internet in aanraking kwam was in 1995 in Zuid-Afrika, waar ik onderzoek deed. Op mijn Nederlandse universiteit hadden we e-mail, maar in Zuid-Afrika was iedereen online en was men er met de meest fantastische dingen bezig. Ik was hoofdredacteur van de universiteitskrant. Al tijdens onze eerste vergadering vroeg een jongen: wat gaan we doen met onze website? We probeerden geld, adverteerders en een drukker te vinden voor onze krant. Dat schoot maar niet op. Maar in één weekend hadden we de hele krant op het internet staan. Ik was toen al zeven jaar journalist, maar had die opwinding nooit gevoeld. Die opwinding was vergelijkbaar met iemand die zijn eerste blogpost plaatst, met iemand die voor het eerst iets verkoopt via eBay. Daar kun je als massamedium niet tegen op.

De bottomline is: mensen willen iets terugzeggen tegen de samenleving. Internet maakt de indivualisering heel makkelijk: iedereen is zijn eigen uitgever. Maar wat doet men met die individualisering? Mensen gaan mailen, chatten, Multiplayer Role Games spelen, samen encyclopedieën schrijven; men gaan bij elkaar zitten om dingen te doen. Dat vind ik heel hoopvol.

Internet geeft ook de mogelijkheid om collectief medeleven te tonen. De Hyves-profielen van overleden militairen worden overspoeld door condoleances.

Je bent inderdaad sneller betrokken op elkaar. Wel is die betrokkenheid heel vluchtig. Volgende week is er weer iets anders. Maar dat maakt die betrokkenheid niet minder waardevol. Het is een ándere vorm van betrokkenheid.

Hier in Amerika hebben we nu de 'primaries'. Dat is een mooi voorbeeld. Bij de voorverkiezingen in New Hampshire hadden alle media het met hun voorspelde uitkomst helemaal fout. En niet een klein beetje ook. Die betrokkenheid van mensen was er, want het opkomstpercentage was gigantisch. Maar men besloot pas op het laatste moment wat men ging stemmen.

De rol van de journalistiek wordt hierdoor heel lastig. Dat beroepsmodel is gebaseerd op een statische samenleving, waar netjes verslag van kan worden gedaan. De journalistiek noemt men het sociaal cement van de samenleving. Cement houdt een huis bij elkaar: het voorkomt juist grote veranderingen. Nu is de journalistiek het sociaal cement van een blokkenhuis, een hut in een township in Zuid-Afrika. Daarin kunnen mensen ook wonen.

Maken de nieuwe media ons egoïstisch?

Egoïstisch, dat weet ik niet. Wel stukken narcistischer. Het valt me bijvoorbeeld op dat op discussiefora van krantenwebsites mensen zichzelf zo graag zien praten. Volgens een onderzoek lezen deelnemers aan discussiefora alleen hun eigen posts. Mensen maken steeds hetzelfde punt en gaan niet op elkaar in.

Hier in Amerika heeft men het over kinderen die zijn opgegroeid in de jaren '80. Vóór die tijd werd je opgevoed met de les dat je hard moest leren en later voor je ouders moest zorgen. Maar in de jaren '80 was elk kind een prinsesje. Als ze 18 of 19 zijn denken die kinderen: de wereld draait om mij, ik doe niks verkeerd.

Kijk ook naar de avatars (3D-speelfiguren, red.) in virtuele werelden. Een collega van mij, die hier onderzoek naar doet, zegt: probeer eens een avatar te vinden die dik of lelijk is. Dat zal je heel moeilijk lukken. Dat narcisme zie ik enorm. Mensen zijn verliefd op zichzelf. Ook paranoia komt veel voor.

In de jaren '60 beweerden Franse filosofen: in een wereld die zo vol zit met media bestaat er geen waarheid meer. Alles wordt doorgekakeld en doorgestuurd. Elk gesprek is zonder betekenis, want mensen praten toch langs elkaar heen. Ik denk dat dat nu waar is. Volgens een recent onderzoek vindt men nieuws heel belangrijk. Tegelijk vertrouwt niemand dat nieuws nog. Amerikanen vertrouwen meer op bedrijven dan op journalisten. Dat is op het gekke af als je denkt aan het Enron-schandaal. Die trend bestaat ook in Nederland.

Als narcisme een enge vorm van zelfexpressie is, dan is paranoia een enge vorm van gezonde twijfel.

Media Job Cuts Acceleration

Wow... Check these headlines, all from todays's (01/09/08) I Want Media newsletter/clipping service (always excellent), see below.

All this news about the writers' strike in the US, the media job cuts, and the problems in media work felt by professionals in other fields and countries again signal the need to critically reconsider what it means to be culturally employed.

Time Warner May Cut 1,000 Jobs Due to Strike

Up to 1,000 employees at Time Warner's Warner Bros. studio in Burbank, Calif., could be laid off after Friday as a result of the Hollywood writers strike. The Warner Bros. notice represents the first concrete sign that the strike could trigger massive job cuts across Hollywood.

McGraw-Hill to Cut 611 Jobs; More May Come

McGraw-Hill, the parent of BusinessWeek magazine and the Standard & Poor's credit rating agency, is eliminating 611 jobs to reduce costs and boost shareholder returns. Also: CEO Harold McGraw says that a second round of job cuts, beyond the 611 announced, could be "prudent."

Chicago Sun-Times Reduces Size, Cuts Jobs

The Chicago Sun-Times is shrinking its physical size by about 1 inch to save newsprint costs. Also, pending staff cuts will pare editorial positions by 19%, the largest local newsroom layoff in recent memory. "The business model is clearly shifting," says one observer.

Seattle Times Plans to Cut Its Work Force

The Seattle Times plans to reduce its work force by 86 positions, mostly through attrition, to aid its financial struggles. The cuts include 17 layoffs, most of them in circulation. The newspaper shares key business operations with Hearst's Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Vloeibaar Leven

Zoals al eerder geblogd: op vrijdag 18 januari geef ik mijn inaugurale rede voor het hoogleraarschap Journalistiek en Nieuwe Media aan de Universiteit van Leiden. Er zijn nog enkele zitplaatsen beschikbaar - reserveer op de website voor het Leidse Academiegebouw (foto van Wikipedia).

Inmiddels is de basistekst zo'n beetje klaar. Hieronder een aantal alinea's uit het middengedeelte van de presentatie - daar waar ik de vertaalslag van eigentijdse ontwikkelingen naar journalistiek en nieuwe media maak met behulp van mijn favoriete denkers: Bauman, Beck, en (wat verder in het verhaal, nog niet hier online) Zizek.

Vloeibaar leven

In deze beschouwing worden we telkens weer herinnerd aan ervaringen van tijdelijke, gepersonaliseerde en sterk individualistische aard. Ik laat daarmee zien dat dit niet alleen geinige marketingvoorbeelden zijn, maar dat deze kenmerken wezenlijk deel uit maken van de manier waarop de meeste mensen tegenwoordig in alle facetten van het leven staan. Een dergelijk leven, zo stelt de Poolse denker Zygmunt Bauman, is een vloeibaar leven, waarin niets meer duurzaam lijkt en alles voortdurend aan verandering onderhevig is. Sterker nog, de spelregels en de scheidsrechters van deze onrustige samenleving worden ook constant overhoop gegooid of zelfs afgeschaft. Het ontbreken van eigentijds arbeids- en samenlevingsrecht is voor mij een goed voorbeeld hiervan, net zoals de in toenemende mate onbeschermde context waarbinnen werkers in de mediawereld hun creatieve ding doen. Volgens Bauman leidt dit onvermijdelijk tot gevoelens van diepe onzekerheid die zelfs de mooiste geluksmomenten kunnen aantasten.

De Duitse socioloog Ulrich Beck voegt hier aan toe, dat we steeds meer gedwongen zijn om voor structurele onzekerheden en risico’s uitsluitend biografische oplossingen te vinden. Er is niets of niemand meer die ons het hand boven het hoofd houdt. In feite worden mensen tegenwoordig aan alle kanten afgeraden om nog te bouwen dan wel te vertrouwen op de woorden en het werk van priesters, presidenten, professionals of: professoren. Zelfredzaamheid is het devies. Zoals Bauman scherp opmerkt: de manier waarop individuele mensen hun individuele problemen definiëren en op individuele basis proberen op te lossen aan de hand van hun individuele vaardigheden en mogelijkheden is de enige overgebleven ‘publieke’ zaak.

Deze beklemmende werkelijkheid zien we dagelijks terug in de talloze programma’s en genres op het gebied van de zogenoemde ‘reality’ televisie, waarvan het programma Big Brother wellicht het bekendste is. Hier ervaren we een realiteit waarin mensen zoals wijzelf in rivaliteit met elkaar de meest alledaagse problemen het hoofd moeten bieden waarin ze niet alleen uitsluitend op zichzelf zijn aangewezen, maar waaruit ze ook op elk moment door een onzichtbare buitenstaander zonder verdere opgaaf van redenen definitief verwijderd kunnen worden. Het is een werkelijkheid waarbij het voor elkaar opkomen of je uitsloven voor andere belangen dan die van jezelf averechts werkt, en waarvoor er geen andere wijsheid bestaat dan die je al bezit. Reality soaps zijn, in essentie, een zorgvuldig gestileerde weergave van het perfect particuliere en tegelijkertijd volmaakt vloeibare leven.


[wordt vervolgd; de oratie wordt uitgegeven door Leiden University Press]

How Television Careers Work

This is a brilliant, devastating but in many ways oddly correct British take on what it is like to have a career in the television industry (it reminds me of an earlier excellent video on careers in the advertising industry). I especially appreciate the references to the importance of age, informal networks (where professional networks are constituted partly out of private relationships), and the lack of clear crediting practices... Thanks to Natalie Fenton for forwarding the link, check this out.

Oratie Journalistiek en Nieuwe Media

Op vrijdag 18 januari aanstaande geef ik een openbaar college - een oratie - ter gelegenheid van mijn benoeming als hoogleraar Journalistiek en Nieuwe Media (sinds maart 2007) aan de Universiteit van Leiden. De oratie duurt drie kwartier en is openbaar: als je in de buurt bent, kom dan graag langs! Een zitplek reserveren in het prachtige Academiegebouw kan je online doen.

[UPDATE 7.1.8: ziehier nog wat meer inhoud uit de oratie]

De titel van mijn oratie is:

“Guerilla Stores, the Soco Experiment, and a next Big Bang: Over de Rol van Nieuwe Media en de Toekomst van Journalistiek in een Vloeibaar Moderne Samenleving"

Het is een hele mond vol, maar aangezien het een publieke lezing is - vooral bedoeld voor vrienden, kennissen, studenten en collega's in de mediawereld en wetenschap - beloof ik dat het leuk blijft en inhoudelijk gezien ergens over gaat...

Bij deze dan maar de eerste paragraaf van de tekst die ik zal presenteren de 18de. Het hele verhaal zal later online te vinden zijn, ergens.

"Het is tegenwoordig zo’n gedoe om eens lekker een avondje te gaan stappen. Tegen de tijd dat je je uitgaanskleren aan hebt, een taxi of ander vervoer is geregeld, je eindeloos buiten in de rij stond om binnen te komen en je zwaarverdiende Euro’s zag verdwijnen in de grijpgrage handen van chauffeurs, portiers, garderobejongens en barkeepers heb je er al geen zin meer in. Het zou zoveel handiger zijn als de nachtclub naar je toe komt. Hetzelfde geldt voor een avondje bioscoop: waarom dat niet om de hoek, zonder dat je daarvoor naar de overvolle binnenstad toe moet, of dat je voor wat filmpret prijzige toegangsbewijzen en verfrissingen moet aanschaffen? Om maar niet te denken aan de lange trek naar het winkelcentrum, of het gezwoeg op zoek naar een fatsoenlijk pension op weg naar een verre vakantieplaats. Geen nood. Tegenwoordig komen discotheken, filmtheaters, winkels en hotels gewoon naar je toe."

(zoals je ziet: dit heeft alles met journalistiek en nieuwe media te maken)

De oratie vindt plaats van 16:15 (stipt...) tot 17:00 uur in het Academiegebouw, Rapenburg 73 - iets voorbij de Leidse binnenstad.

Let op: Genodigden dienen uiterlijk 16:00 aanwezig te zijn in het Groot Auditorium van het Academiegebouw (Rapenburg 73; het gebouw staat nog wel in de bouwsteigers).

Daarna is iedere aanwezige welkom een glas te heffen op de receptie, welke zal plaatsvinden in de Oude UB (universiteitsbibliotheek) op het Rapenburg 70 (vlakbij het Academiegebouw), van 17:15 tot 18:30 uur.

Why Mass Media Don't Work

Nice little video by Geert Desager, a Belgian marketing manager at Microsoft, on the failure of the advertiser-consumer relationship. Replace "advertiser" with "mass media" (including journalism), and there is a point here that even dataveillance and a personal information economy won't resolve...

Media Work: Sold Out!

Not sure whether this is good news (the book is doing well), bad news (it is hard to get a copy for a decent price now, especially outside of the US), or really bad news (the publisher only printed ten copies in the first place)... but: Media Work (link to PDF info sheet) is practically sold out everywhere. Polity Press confirms this, and has ordered (and indeed already completed) a reprint.

[UPDATE: 27.11.07]: The good folks over at Polity Press tell me (and I quote): "we've already sold just shy of 1000 copies", which seems pretty decent for an academic book that has been out for about 6-8 weeks now. Well, I'm excited, anyway! A second printing has just been sent to US and European distributors, and I've been told a third printing is in the works as well - if the book keeps doing well.

[UPDATE: 15.01.08: After some system bugs and software issues, the second and third (!) printing of the book is now finally available through US distributor Wiley. This also means it should pop up on Amazon again soon...

In the mean time, if you by any chance are looking for a copy (and thanks for your interest if that is the case), check Bookfinder.com for listings of new & used book availability. Ordering directly from the publisher (Blackwell UK, Blackwell US/international, or Polity Press) should work, too.

Media Strikes Everywhere

Either it is some strange coincidence, a cultural "rogue wave", my undoubtedly selective perception... or what we are witnessing around the world is just the tip of the iceberg that is labor exploitation in the cultural/creative industries.

Consider the ongoing writers' strike in the American motion pictures industry; the pending strike by CBS News writers in New York; the looming strike among BBC reporters, editors and staff; the recent Europe-wide "Stand Up For Journalism" day; last year's report on the rise of atypical (precarious, uncontracted, contingent) media work by the International Labor Organization (link to PDF); recent and forthcoming books by critical and deeply concerned academics around the world such as David Hesmondhalgh, Andy Pratt, Ned Rossiter, Vincent Mosco and Catherine McKercher; and the growing concerns and job losses associated with runaway production (TV/film), remote control journalism (news), and outsourcing (digital games)...

I'd suggest it is increasingly important to see what connects all of this - not to find "evidence" for oversimplified generalizations about precarity or corporate misconduct, but to look at the situational contexts of these instances of media workers' agency and tactics while staying within the larger media industry ecosystem.

Uncertainty about Digital Futures

These are some thoughts based on a discussion over at Deadline Hollywood Daily on the uncertainties over the digital future. The film and TV people - above and below the line - are at odds over what will happen once the distribution model for their work is expected to completely shift to online. In the current strike, a complaint - as explained in this United Hollywood video - has been that studio executives claim not to make any money (or not knowing what will happen), while in the same breath explaining to reporters or investors that their businesses online will generate billions. Lots of uncertainty about digital futures, for sure.

It seems that all parties in this conflict are certain about one thing: the future is online. So lets ignore the fact that below-the-line labor suffers most from this strike, and that paying writers for scripts and not for repurposing the products based on those scripts perhaps might be valid if you put writers on a payroll with benefits and so on.

Regarding the promises of the digital age, several industry observers have made reference to the importance of the "pipes" (you know, broadband bandwidth). That seems to be true - but I think may be ultimately misleading. The studios have gradually retreated from producing movies (just like the labels have almost stopped investing in artists and bands), instead focusing their business model predominantly on marketing and distribution (and some boutique creative work).

As internet is basically an open P2P communications infrastructure, it completely disrupts the gatekeeper model in journalism (hence the panic in the news industry), or the bottleneck model in, for example, film and music.

In the short term, fighting off anyone who wants to share in online revenue is a solid business purpose (to please stock market analysists). but in the long run, it seems - and I may sound too hopeful here - that talent, creativity and innovation may be a more promising investment.

Assuming for a moment that Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL (the "Fab Four") will win the fight for Net neutrality, they and companies like them will be in control of distribution and access. producers and consumers of content - whether professional or amateur - will have to go through them. but they do not operate on the premise of gatekeeping - more on the level of forwarding, "gatewatching", annotating, aggregating, and so on.

In other words: what will have lasting value, is compelling content. How it will get to whoever wants to consume it, is in the short term hugely important but in the long term tremendously irrelevant.

Thoughts in progress...

Call: Special Issue on: Newswork

Call for Papers: Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism

Special Issue on: "Newswork"

Guest Editors:
Mark Deuze, Department of Telecommunications at Indiana University and Professor of Journalism and New Media at Leiden University, The Netherlands, and Timothy Marjoribanks, School of Political Science, Criminology and Sociology at the University of Melbourne, Australia.


The work that journalists do is changing fast. The creation of content in the global news industry takes place under increasingly precarious and otherwise problematic conditions. In terms of audiences, reporters and editors have to come to terms with those who Jay Rosen calls “The People Formerly Known As The Audience” (TPFKATA) as co-producers of news.

Regarding content, Pablo Boczkowski, Michael Schudson and others signal “news isomorphism” and “interinstitutional news coherence” as the industry digitizes and converges, as the reliance on agency feeds grows, and as journalists are expected to do more with less time and fewer resources and colleagues.

But perhaps most crucially for the focus of this special issue, one has to consider the changing contexts of news production. Consider for example the 2006 labor market assessment by the International Federation of Journalists, reporting the rapid rise of so-called "atypical" newswork – especially among younger reporters and newcomers in journalism.

Furthermore one has to consider the worldwide trend towards outsourcing of “free labor” (