A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE ROLE OF COMMUNICATION IN NEW MEDIA JOURNALISM AND ONLINE CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

The first decade of the 21st century will be remembered as the period when the media died.  Traditional legacy media as we know it, newspapers, television and radio stations are struggling to survive as they attempt to transition to the internet.  This struggle has been largely attributed to the rise of citizen journalism and the influence of social networks organized around emails, blogs, twitter, flickr, Youtube, MySpace and Facebook.  

However, in the language of social construction, the struggle has been largely attributed to the transformation of media as monologic communication into a dialogic one.  The simple notion of media as a dialogic communication means that journalists and their audiences have to rethink their roles, their responsibilities, and most important of all, the way they do their work.  Journalists have no clue about facilitating a conversation as a way to communicate with their audiences.  They do interviews, they do research, and they do investigative reporting.  The audiences are used to being passive receivers of information.  They discuss news with their own select groups and sometimes, make a public stand about their position on some relevant news by writing a letter to the editor or calling in.    

In researching social construction approaches on how to develop relationships and use dialogue to establish shared meaning and understanding, the focus will be on selecting and applying findings to foster the role of communication in new media journalism as well as online civic engagement.  Of particular concern would be the interaction of human beings using mobile and other hand held devices.  Would the research on the interaction of human beings be relevant to the interaction of human beings using mobile devices?  Have the new media and online social networks freed human beings from the constraints of face-to-face conversations?  And how would a journalist interpret the meaning of the words and video conveyed through an electronic medium?  Most important of all, how would a new media journalist facilitate a conversation about a particular issue in order to have deep, thoughtful, informed discussions that inspire, motivate and activate?  These questions, and more, will be explored in the creation of a New Media Lab and Incubator where journalists will experiment with new ways of working, where concerned citizens learn to participate in ongoing conversations with informed opinions, and where the ultimate goal of conversations would be advocates engaged in a common cause.     

The New Media Lab and Incubator has been funded as a 12-month project through 2010 and as project manager, I will have the opportunity to explore and experiment with practitioners trying new media formats, academics suggesting approaches to the conversation of journalism and organized citizen groups eager to use new media and social networking tools to engage and involve members.