Final Exam Question--Coyne

By: Pete Coyne

Television has been a popular medium since its inception. The essay "Democratizing Television" by Henry Jenkins argues that it has the potential to become even more popular if participation becomes the major component. Not only would it become more popular but more specialized and to the point for viewers who know what they want and how they want it. Consumer moderated news is becoming more and more popular. The idea of crowdsourcing which is the model of productivity explained in this short clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0-UtNg3ots not only utilizes consumers specialized wants and needs to increase viewership but it also uses their dispersed and specialized knowledge and skills to format and produce the material. The idea of Television being participatory has not played out as BBC or Al Gore anticipated. Instead the shift from a single format and production player to many participating has played out online.  The idea of grassroots generated content is extremely popular and rightly so. Video is a popular format for media and the closer to home the control over its production is the more users there will be. Though crowdsourced television has become more and more popular it has not replaced traditional television. This means something because traditional television has a clearer business side to it than more modern media like youtube or social networks. This means that if the money is still with traditional TV that the shift cannot be that complete. With this in mind it's important to note that mdoern media compliments traditional television and doesn't replace it...yet. I think that digital media is extremely liberating and speaks to democratizing society more than traditional television does. The concept of unlimited access to ideas and opinions means there will be more discussion and more freedom. Digital media has ushered in a soap box that allows people to preach to the world. This is encouraing for democracy. It allows information to flow more freely and therefore more people know more things. Not only do people know more things but they also can comment on the things they have found out and help shape opinions and outcomes. It also helps traditional TV stay honest. If there is a disparity between what modern crowdsourced media is relaying and what traditional TV is relaying then people will become skeptical of traditional TV. The other side of the story is that traditional TV has more centralized man power and capital and perhaps connections to recieve news more reliably and faster. Digital crowdsource media is much better at circulating that news though. In this way the two are symbiotic. The following is a lecture by Jason Loviglio at UMBC about media and democracy. Though it is long skimming through yeilds some interesting facts and ideas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyWzV1eR59I&feature=related