The Open Room: Journalism’s From Mars, Social Media’s From Venus
June 26, 2009 – 12:01 am | by Daryl Tay
Mars & Venus
Ogilvy’s Digital Influence team held another Open Room, titled “Journalism’s from Mars, Social Media’s from Venus” and after tonight, I think it’s clear that the problem they have is the problem everyone (businesses, schools, non-profits, the music industry, etc) is having. They were sitting on a model that was working for the last 50 or so years, have been blind-sided by the sudden tidal wave of social media and not only are they not scrambling to catch up, but they’re actually holding on to the old world for all that it’s worth.
As with panels, I was fully prepared for some of the audience to be un-accepting of some young (and even worse, enemployed) punk telling them what the world is like. And it was no different this time, which is fine with me, it makes life exciting! How awfully boring would it be if everyone just nodded their heads and agreed.
I think it was a really interesting discussion. There was as much uncommon ground as there was common, and it’s painfully obvious both sides have to learn from each other. Monetisation is not a dirty word, but neither is trusting a fellow blogger. I think we have to move away from our normal worldviews that content creating is done for passion (for bloggers) or that the man on the street (or the Tweeter on Tweetdeck) is less reliable and/or credible than the journalist.
Thinking about “journalism” from the point of breaking news and real good opinion pieces is one thing. But I think we need to think about where the money comes from. Thinking about subscription models and what not is fine (even though they won’t work), but as Thomas Crampton brought up, mainstream media has enjoyed the monopoly on reaching people and advertising for a very long time, and companies are just beginning to realise that they can bypass the “middleman” entirely, thus crippling the revenue model. Will it provide them the reach? Probably not. Will it provide them the influence? Barack Obama’s YouTube channel suggests yes (yes yes I know it worked in tandem with traditional media).
As a closing comment: someone said that old habits die hard, referring to the staying power of traditional media and being used to opening that Sunday edition of the paper over a slow and leisurely breakfast. Here’s a thought: my “old” habits from the old world started changing by the time I was thirteen, and many were gone by the time I was seventeen. Radio, once a nightly listen for the dedication show, is an afterthought, so are magazines. TV serves my purposes when I want it to, newspapers have flown out of the window, music exists in the form of mp3s, not cds. The only “old world” habit I maintain is the reading of books.
My point is this: as much as old habits die hard, to the new generation, new habits form at an alarming speed that the world has never seen before. When, if ever, has a generation been influenced so quickly and successively like from the transition to Friendster to Facebook? That’s not just the speed of platform change, but the speed of diffusion from half a world away. When and how fast did we take up texting to replace calling? The speed of change is crazy. Geographical boundaries barely exist anymore. And I would ask people who believe in the “old habits” to take a look at their children, their nephews, their nieces or anyone under 20 and tell me how many of their “old habits” they see replicated in them, and ask how different the world will be in five or ten years, and if now’s the time to think about that change, or cling on to “old habits”.
Tags: advertising, barack obama, Books, credibility, dedication show, digital influence, facebook, friendster, generation y, geographical boundaries, journalism's from mars, magazines, monetisation, monetization, mp3s, music, newspapers, ogilvy, old habits die hard, old world, open room, radio, reliability, social media's from venus, staying power, subscription models, thomas crampton, trusting bloggers, tv, youtube
10 Responses to “The Open Room: Journalism’s From Mars, Social Media’s From Venus”
By Thomas Crampton on Jun 26, 2009 | Reply
Wow! You are fast, Daryl. Really enjoyed our discussion. Let me know if you come through Hong Kong!
By Daryl Tay on Jun 26, 2009 | Reply
@Thomas Crampton: Thank you! I enjoyed it too. I definitely will. It was in the cards this summer, then H1N1 hit and things got canned.
By Mohd Hisham on Jun 26, 2009 | Reply
There’s just too many angles to argue/dispute/agree – This needs to be carried on to another actual discussion.
With the exception of a few journalist, the ones on twitter are the new media folks; so whatever post-event discussions being carried out of over there; will not really reach the eyes & ears of the people who matter – the journalist.
By claudia on Jun 26, 2009 | Reply
Good point there Hisham. So the TM wants us the citizen (digital or not) to listen to them and nods to their words, but what about the other direction of communications? Are they plugged in to the digital world? OR do they come to us only when they need information that they failed to find from google cos they used the wrong keywords? Or perhaps they’re using rednano that isn’t trending sites as well as google?
From what I hear from the “faces” of the big boy’s digital media department, no they are not concern about what we the digial citizens are saying about them. Their main concern is how to bring in money. Other things doesn’t really matter.
By Daryl Tay on Jun 26, 2009 | Reply
@Claudia, @Mohd Hisham: Clearly it’s the latter. And the truth is that’s fine. It’s just like the business world. Only a few are taking social media seriously and those that don’t, will sooner or later be caught in a wave that they have no idea how to surface from. Ignoring the problem (or the conversation) does not make it go away, as we all well know.
By Tania Chew on Jun 30, 2009 | Reply
Actually I beg to differ somewhat. The fact that so many journalists attended the Open Room session says to me that they are at least interested in hearing what the digerati have to say. And I’ve also heard wider post-event conversations between the journos who attended and colleagues who missed it, that they’d like to have more such sessions with new media folks, which I think is a great thing.
Our aim of the gathering was to foster a better understanding between both groups of people and we wanted each side to have the opportunity to learn from the other.
I wouldn’t pooh-pooh die-hard traditionalists entirely…it might simply be a lack of understanding. Getting it wrong isn’t a bad thing, it’s the effort to try that matters. And I wouldn’t say that the post-event conversations don’t reach their eyes/ears either. They might actually be reading and not commenting just yet
By Thomas Crampton on Jun 30, 2009 | Reply
@tania: At the very least, some of the more traditional journalists may have read the event coverage in the printed newspaper
I think it is great to get people talking. It may take a while to convert them, but at least they are discussing and learning.