Again using the Potter Box, what should your decision be?
Points of Discussion
1 Describe yourself in media terms. What do you read for news? For escape? For enjoyment?
2 Which news organization is most like you? Why?
3 Which news organization do you distrust the most? Why?
4 Which medium do you go to when you first wake up?
5 Keep a diary of all the media you consume over one day. Which ones were most useful? Least useful? Why?
Reference
1 Hare, K. (2020, December 9). Did we just experience the hardest decade in journalism? Poynter. https://www.poynter.org/journalisms‐hardest‐decade/
Additional Resources
Websites and universities promoting news literacy:
The Center for News Literacy, State University of New York at Stony Brook:
1 Center for News Literacy, Stony Brook University School of Journalism. (n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2020. https://www.centerfornewsliteracy.org
The European Centre for News Literacy:
1 Revolutions. (n.d.). Revolutions global trends and regional issues. Retrieved November 18, 2020. http://revjournal.org/tag/european‐center‐for‐news‐literacy
The News Literacy Project:
1 News Literacy Project. (n.d.). Retrieved on November 18, 2020. https://newslit.org
1 North Dakota Public Library System. (n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2020. http://www.library.nd.gov/
The Reuters Institute for the Study of Politics at Oxford.
1 Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. (n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2020. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk
Other additional resources:
Non‐journalistic sources in a digital age:
1 Bell, E. and Owen, T. (eds.) (2017). Journalism After Snowden: The future of the free press in the surveillance state. Columbia University Press.
How to be skeptical but not cynical in journalism:
1 City News Bureau of Chicago. (2020, October 12). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_News_Bureau_of_Chicago
1 Davis, B. (2017, September 20). Ethical decision making in the journalism world. Scripps Media Ethics/ Blogspot https://scrippsmediaethics.blogspot.com/2017/09/ethical‐decision‐making‐in‐journalism.html.
How the digital culture has made journalism more complex:
1 McBride, K. and Rosenstiel, T. (2014). The New Ethics of Journalism. Sage Publications.
The essential guide to doing good and great ethical journalism:
1 Kovach, B. and Rosenstiel, T. (2014). The Elements of Jouranlism. Three Rivers Press.
1 Morozov, E. (2011). The Net Delusion. Public Affairs Books.
Pew Research Center trends and facts on newspapers:
1 Pew Research Center. (n.d.). Newspapers. Retrieved November 18, 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/topics/newspapers/
2 Changing Definitions of News
TAKEAWAYS FROM CHAPTER 2
1 Why there is a human need for information
2 How different technologies and platforms change information, sometimes with unintended consequences
3 How the news was changed when the technologies changed
4 How people define themselves by the media they consume
5 Changing cultural, institutional, and economic influences on the news
6 The effect of digital technology on the news
Curiosity is one of our deepest instincts.
And technologies have always been invented and adapted to serve our instinctive need to know.
In Europe until the 15th century, literacy and the technology that served it were limited to the writings (and copying) of biblical texts. This was done exclusively in Latin by church officials whose purpose was to write the Bible out by hand. This was extremely labor intensive, and only one copy of the Bible would be produced over as many as two years.
But in 1455, a German printer named Johannes Gutenberg created a revolutionary invention: movable typesetting. This allowed for more efficient and mechanical printing of the Bible and was an early form of mass production, allowing a copy to be printed once every few weeks rather than every few years. Gutenberg wasn’t the first to come up with this remarkable invention. Korean and Chinese printers invented a similar system two centuries previously. But Gutenberg had no way of knowing this due to the lack of contact between Europe and Asia at that time. His invention was nothing short of revolutionary and changed the way Europeans (and North Americans) communicated.
We need to appreciate the enormous implications of Gutenberg’s moveable type for advancing communication. No longer could authorities, such as the Roman Catholic Church or a local potentate, maintain a monopoly on information. There were frequent attempts over the centuries to control the spread of information, but Gutenberg’s revolution proved to be unstoppable. Print newspapers, pamphlets, and, much later, electronic inventions, such as the telegraph and the telephone, allowed for a more rapid and less controlled spread of information. This coincided with the growth of literacy and public education. As written information proliferated, more people had access to books, and literacy increased. As a result, people became more curious about and engaged in the world around them. A new industrial culture of producing, sharing, and disseminating information accelerated by the early 19th century in Europe and North America. It was the beginning of what we recognize today as the modern news culture.
In the early 20th Century, the news adapted to other new technologies, such as photography, radio, and, by the 1950s, television.
Just as Gutenberg’s invention forever changed the way in which Europeans were able to articulate and express their needs, the application of electricity to new communications methods rapidly changed the world once more. Citizens in countries with access to these new technological advances were enthralled and demanded more information more quickly and more reliably.
Like Gutenberg’s invention, the effect of digitalization on the news was equally transformative. The news as a technological and cultural phenomenon was already highly profitable and hugely competitive. Newspapers in the UK and the US battled for market supremacy with lurid headlines and