Brian Carroll uses Aristotle’s rhetorical concept of ethos in his article “Culture Clash: Journalism and the Communal Ethos of the Blogosphere,” in order to compare and contrast blogs and traditional print media. While traditional print media organization’s ethos is typically based on values such as accuracy, fairness, timeliness, precision, clarity and comprehensiveness; the ethos for news and information blogs is based more on values such as immediacy, transparency, interconnectivity, and proximity to the events.
Blogs have been perceived as a threat to traditional journalism, but times are changing and as newspaper readers are aging and dieing off, newer generations are looking to the internet for news coverage. This raises the important question of how will old media survive in this changing environment?
“It is suggested here that old media can better adapt and survive, even thrive, by opportunistically and selectively combining the schemas for ethos in and for traditional print media with those embodied by news and information blogs” Carroll stated. “The blog is but one digital medium or form in an evolving media ecosystem that increasingly enables and rewards participation by individuals, making traditional news media’s cognitive recognition of this communal ethos all the more important.”
While blogging may still be regarded as a “dangerous” medium due to the lack of regulation, I feel that blogging is gaining momentum at a constant rate and there is no sign of slowing down. In fact, The New York Times’ executive in charge of digital media, Martin Nisenholtz, and prominent blogger, David Winder, made a bet about whether in 2007 blogs will tank higher than Times articles in Google news searches. I checked Google news at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 27, and Nisenholtz was still winning the bet; however, I strongly believe Winder will win the bet a year from now.
How should ethos in traditional journalism be re-thought and what concessions should be made by old media to appeal to the younger demographic?
How will newspaper readerships online be turned into revenue?
week 5 - blogs as citizen journalism « Social Technologies, Media and Politics said,
April 29, 2008 @ 10:14 am
[...] – Student-led reading discussion: * (1 – Kendra) Carroll, B. (2004). Culture Clash: Journalism and the Communal Ethos of the Blogosphere. In L.J. [...]
week 6 - social media and politics « Social Technologies, Media and Politics said,
May 6, 2008 @ 12:47 pm
[...] – Kendra) Carroll, B. (2004). Culture Clash: Journalism and the Communal Ethos of the Blogosphere. In L.J. [...]
Whitney said,
May 6, 2008 @ 3:46 pm
I think this article really hits on the core of where media is going and why it is going there and I appreciate its optimistic tone that takes the stance that maybe traditional media has a chance to adapt. I’m not sure though if I agree with Carrolls’ argument that the ethos for news and information blogs is based on immediacy, transparency, interconnectivity and proximity to events. While blogs do fit into each of these categories in some way, I think that Carroll left out the fact that a majority of news blogs are created to report on what traditional media leaves out or misses altogether. It will be interesting to see how traditional media evolves even more to include (or exclude) the Blogosphere and how the Blogosphere reacts to that change.
kendra4 said,
May 6, 2008 @ 9:09 pm
Thanks for the insightful comment! I am have difficulty deciding which view is correct when it comes to the correct ethos of blogs. I agree with your comment that “a majority of news blogs are created to report on what traditional media leaves out,” but I do think Carroll was correct when he stated that blogs ethos is based more on immediacy. Immediacy is one of the aspects of blogging that print media can’t compete with. If something were to happen at 3:30 p.m., someone could write a blog about it and you could be reading the info by 3:45 p.m.; however, a print edition of the story would not be available till the following morning. So in that way I think immediacy is a positive aspect, but if abused it can be come a negative. For instance, if accuracy is compromised in order to get a story out there sooner, then that is a problem as well. Unfortunately I don’t think there is a clear answer to this ethos dilemma, but I think as blogs continue to grow in popularity and credibility, the answer will become more clear.
Lorin said,
May 7, 2008 @ 7:40 am
The good thing about newspapers, tv and radio stations is that there are only a finite number of them that exist. Hardly ever does a new station or paper spring up. But in the blogosphere, hundreds of thousands of new blogs are appearing every month, creating new and diverse voices to join the public sphere. With all these blogs and their capacity to be infinite, how will they ever truly be able to act as the fifth estate on the traditional mass media? For instance, all the newspapers and tv stations say that there were no voting problems in last night’s election. Yet, a blogger was shut out of a polling station and goes back to blog exactly that, and said that he or she knows of other people who weren’t allowed to vote, and that the traditional media got the story wrong. If only three people in the world see that bloggers’ post, did they make a difference? I love the thought of blogs, but over time, too many voices with many variations of the truth end up sounding just like noise.
kendra4 said,
May 7, 2008 @ 7:41 pm
I think you made a very valid point when you said “too many voices with many variations of the truth end up sounding like noise.” I often find that when I am looking for blogs in a certain topic, and there are several to choose from, I feel overwhelmed and look elsewhere. There is definitely a sense of ease I feel when watching the news or reading a newspaper, I am not constantly feeling bombarded and I don’t necessarily feel the desire to react to the information. If I were reading a blog I often feel that I must read the comments on the blog in order to create a better perspective on the topic; however, comments often tend to stray from the main topic, leaving me feeling overwhelmed AND lost.
KC Cowen said,
May 8, 2008 @ 9:26 am
To answer your question, “How should ethos in traditional journalism be re-thought and what concessions should be made by old media to appeal to the younger demographic?”… I don’t think that any concessions need to be made by old media. Why can’t old and new media coexist? But yes, I agree that newspaper readerships will increase online. Papers could charge a yearly fee to view the online newspaper.
Whitney said,
May 8, 2008 @ 5:40 pm
I think you are extremely right in saying that immediacy is an aspect of the digital world that print media can’t compete with. But, as I was reading your comment, I started thinking about weather accuracy really could be compromised. It seems that anything that goes digital, especially in large scale publications, are scrutinized more than ever. I think that accuracy if anything is paid more close attention to because so many more people have the chance to access information (through RSS feeds, search engines etc.). Accuracy might be something that the writer could more easily skip out on, but I think the ramifications of that action will probably hit them harder than in a print publication.
Lorin said,
May 9, 2008 @ 2:24 pm
In response to your comment on comments (lol), I read an editorial on the New York Times today about Clinton needs to be the one to decide when she exits the race and not the media. The story was about 500 words long, yet when I started to take a look at the 840 comments submitted by readers, some of them had written what seemed like term papers as a rebuttal or an agreement to the editorial. The comment system constructed by the Times is similar to how I view blogs – a random assemblage of commenting. Just imagine if someone asked you what’s the best way to save the environment? Millions of blogs have been created to answer this question. Who is right? Everyone? No one? I am so grateful that we can all speak now, but who is listening to what we are saying?
kendra4 said,
May 10, 2008 @ 10:11 pm
In response to Whitney — I agree with you that accuracy is being more criticized because more people have access to the information; however, I don’t think accuracy is something that authors are more likely to skip out on. If anything, I think (at least I hope) authors will try to complete more reasearch and create better posts since their posts are open to such scrutiny.
In response to Lorin — 840 comments?! I wonder how many hours people spent pretending to work, while they were actually writing 2,000 word responses to a New York Times article? Not only does your post make me question who is listening to us, but why are we wasting so much time posting if no one is reading? I feel like blogs are just a way for people to talk when they have no one that wants to listen. Lots of people talking at each other, but little interaction or response.
KC Cowen said,
May 11, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
In response to Kendra’s response to Lorin… I agree that blogs can be wasteful if there are “lots of people talking at each other, but little interaction or response”. In my mind, I visualize a Fox news program where everyone is just screaming at each other, interrupting, talking over each other, etc. (I believe that Jon Stewart referred to these types of news show participants as hacks) There is truly little interaction, little listening. Listening and responding is the only path to understanding.
And in response to Kendra’s response to Whitney… I agree that “authors will try to complete more research and create better posts since their posts are open to such scrutiny.” Isn’t this the idea behind the links and tagging that we have learned this quarter?
paks2008 said,
May 11, 2008 @ 6:32 pm
KC, I agree with what you said about old and new media coexisting. Every medium has its own audience and most people like to stay within their comfort zones. But just as you and Kendra both say, online readership and blogging are constantly gaining momentum. I’m not exactly sure how ethos in traditional journalism should be re-thought in this day and age to appeal to the younger demographics, but a good way to start would be to provide more in-depth coverage and other features online on one story instead of just having the same story offered online. It’s not very new or innovative and pretty much pointless to have two versions of the same article.