Social Reading
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“The problem of how media has evolved is that it has isolated people,” says Amy Gahran of the Poynter Institute. “Your role was passive and to take it in. That damaged society in some ways.” David Weinberger points to the early history of writing when reading became internalized. “Some people say that’s the origin of modern consciousness. The voice we heard externally, reading to us, we now hear internally.”
Cognitive scientists who study how the brain evolved say there were deep changes in our brain structures once reading and writing emerged. Marshall McLuhan famously describes how the emergence of communication technology as early as the printing press affected how we think, which had profound impact on social organization. Weinberger believes it is about to change again: “When you think of reading, you think of being by yourself, sitting quietly and reading in the hammock. Now reading may be a social act and this may change how we think.” The growing mobile, acoustic, visual and interactive web enables a new experience—social reading.
Television is already evolving into a more social experience. Just before Barack Obama’s inauguration, for example, CNN incorporated Facebook Connect. “For the first time, users could watch live TV online, invite their friends, chat with them while viewing and enjoy a social experience around Internet TV,” according to the Razorfish Digital Outlook Report.
Socratic Journalism
Now that online platforms have reached a scale for mass conversations, “social reading” may become the central metaphor for new media, which includes social editing and producing. This trend could change journalism in more significant ways than we have witnessed already.
How could such conversations be different from those on any social networking site? The answer might be in the role the journalist plays. Since reading and watching television was an individual act, the journalist’s role as an “educator” was paramount. People learned about current affairs privately, which equipped them to interact publicly. With social reading, people learn about current affairs and engage with others at the same time.
Journalists become conveners, facilitators and instigators in an inquiry process. They work with others to understand an issue more fully. Brave New Films, a member of The Media Consortium (TMC), has advanced such an approach to online documentary projects with Robert Greenwald’s “Rethink Afghanistan.” As a result, a reporter’s own skills and knowledge combine with that of users, to reach an outcome that is simultaneously more immediate, suspenseful, emotionally engaging, credible, and ultimately more comprehensive.
In the future, journalists will not simply report news for news’ sake; they will call readers to be problem solvers who think critically and iteratively with each other. Essentially, they go from declarative and adaptive reporting to being Socratic journalists.
This blog is an excerpt from The Big Thaw, a guide to the evolution of independent media, written by Tony Deifell of Q Media Labs and produced by The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets. Learn how your organization can use this report. For more information and recommendations from the study, click here.
[...] Social ReadingIn the future, journalists will not simply report news for news’ sake; they will call readers to be problem solvers who think critically and iteratively with each other. [...]