Director’s Blog

Not the digital youth

This is my introduction to a series of papers on the subject of the ‘myth of digital natives’. They were given at a Polis event last autumn, you can read them in full here. They attempt to dispel the idea that young people of the Internet generation are naturally gifted at using online resources and seek to find ways to enhance everyone’s ability to benefit from digital communications.

Myths can be useful ways for societies to tell stories about themselves. They can help us preserve our values and cope with change. So the idea that young people are particularly, even naturally adept at using new media technologies is comforting and perhaps even exciting. (more…)

Shanghai is a spectacular world city that demonstrates its enterprise and dynamism on every street. But how rich is China in the kind of creativity that will keep it at the digital cutting edge?

My trip here has revealed different types of poverty that lurk just behind the towering modernity. For example some of these super clever students at the elite University of Fudan still have dorms without hot water or heating. Electric fires are banned, too.

Likewise, the media industry here appears to be booming but scratch under the surface and you realise that even the political authorities fear that there are too many obstacles to innovation. This is both a source of concern and hope. (more…)

Old to New

This is the text of a speech to a gathering of global journalism education leaders at the 80th anniversary conference of Fudan University, Shanghai.

JOURNALISM EDUCATION FOR A NETWORKED MEDIA

Orwellian

Naturally, I am delighted that my own SuperMedia has made the cut, in the section described as ‘Journalism Critique’ alongside an all-time favourtie of mine, George Orwell, and a contemporary influence, Jay Rosen.

I am not sure I deserve to be in such exalted company, but that shouldn’t stop you voting for SuperMedia

On a more serious note, the survey sensibly allows you to suggest other works not on the list. This is good because it is a bit American, male and perhaps, overly serious.

So in keeping with the intellectual approach,  I would offer a book that has underpinned my work here at Polis, Roger Silverstone’s Media and Morality.

For an understanding of the craft of writing, I would submit the immortal Keith Waterhouse Mirror Style Guide.

But perhaps you can learn more about journalism through satire – and because it is supposed to be fun, after all – I would offer the (inevitable) Evelyn Waugh Scoop and the less predictable, but equally hilarious and truthful, Towards The End of the Morning by Michael Frayn.

Make your choices here

How do you catch the attention of young people in a world, where the amount of information available is so massive, indeed,, for all practical reasons, infinite? That is the question Matt Locke, commissioning editor on Channel 4, is facing everyday, as he works with the channel’s section for teenagers, producing content about the choices you face as a teenager, trying to grasp the world of grown-ups, that they are about to enter.

Guest blog by Ida Ebbensgaard, Polis Summer School student

The answer was obvious: Young people listen to their friends. So make their friends like what your doing! Channel 4 has taken this insight and has made a strategic choice: They switched all their educational output from TV to the Internet and now the budget of five million pounds a year is used online. Today, Channel 4’s way to catch the attention of the users is to focus on streams, not sites.

Getting attention is still a crucial point. But the attention is caught in a different way. When designing the launch of a new project on the Channel Four, the most important question is (more…)