"We the Media"-Professional Journalists Join the Conversation

After reading “We the Media”, I think the concept what Dan Gillmor implies is that mass media, which was initially controlled by media organization is gradually transformed to “public media” or “republic media”, which is led by audience. Everyone has the opportunity to join shaping the future of news and information.

“The medium is the message”, said from Marshall McLuhan in his book--Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, has seemed already a gospel in communication field for 40 years. Hence, some bloggers thought that it implied that “the medium is not the message anymore” when Gillmor broached the concept “We Media”. But I think they are too hasty pitching for the Internet media, even blog! Until Gillmor transformed the idea of “We media” to “We the Media”, some antis realized that Gillmor tried to extend McLuhan’s notion. Furthermore, the wave of technology pushed the mass media in the new ear to evolve themselves to a new ecosystem—“We the Media”. Combining these two concepts, they are “We are the media, and the media are the messages”. It can truly reflect the characters and the entity of “Grassroots Journalism".

Journalists
“We will learn we are part of something new, that our readers/listeners/viewers are becoming part of the process. I take it for granted, for example, that my readers know more than I do—and this is a liberating, not threatening, fact of journalistic life. Every reporter on every beat should embrace this. We will use the tools of grassroots journalism or be consigned to history. Our core values, including accu­racy and fairness, will remain important, and we’ll still be gatekeepers in some ways, but our ability to shape larger conversations—and to provide context—will be at least as important as our ability to gather facts and report them” (by Dan Gillmor). The emergence of blog lets audiences and readers have a channel to convey their opinions. However, it also interferes to the superiority complex of the traditional journalism. Journalists are demanded to provide objective notions, but in blog, it is a channel to allow people subjectively present their ideas. Thus, some journalists are disallowed to have their own blog in order to maintain a professional image. If I were the operator of a newspaper, I would erect our own blog as an interactive channel for public to explicate their opinions. There are two advantages: one is it is easier to manage and collect information; another is, it can advance our decent image. The parent company of “Lawrence.com” set up a high interactive platform “Lawrence.com” to allow demos to communicate with each other. “Lawrence.com” intends to present a professional as well as decent image. Here is its link: http://www.lawrence.com/blogs/

Audiences can provide affluent information more than we want. Blog is not full of the abuse of mood, junk ads and broadcaster's worship, but offer a platform that demos can deeply discuss and truly disclose the news and events themselves through linking and quoting. In fact this is a very big communication community, audiences can fully read, fully express what they find in this free space. I think blog will be a powerful medium help public to reform the world.