This tendency to remain on the surface, touch a topic, point to an article without even giving a proper opinion about it apart from it being worth mentioning, is widespread and is foundational to blogging. How many of the postings, we can ask with Cornel West, are Socratic questioning? Why is the blogosphere so obsessed with measuring, counting, and feeding, and so little with rhetoric, aesthetics, and ethics?

http:/www.yourguide.com.au [Fairfax]
http://www.newsspace.com.au [News Limited]

By Robin Miller

Posted: 2007-07-24

Robin ‘Roblimo’ Miller is Editor in Chief for OSTG, owner of Slashdot, NewsForge, freshmeat, Linux.com, SourceForge.net, and the ecommerce site ThinkGeek.

I live in Bradenton, Florida, where we have two local newspapers, the Bradenton Herald and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Neither one has a very good website. Both are steadily losing print subscribers and advertisers, just like most newspapers around the country. Still, newspapers are usually the most recoginizable media brands in their communities, and should be able to translate that brand recognition into local online information dominance. Here’s how they can do it.

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http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/070724miller/

INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH LUNCHTIME SEMINARS 2007

Thurs 28 June 12:30 – 2 pm Swinburne Place West 226

Professor Fred Fletcher (York University, Canada)

‘The Future of News’

At each stage of their development, modern news media have altered the nature of the public sphere. From the coffee houses of the 18th century, through the emergence of daily newspapers, news services, the electronic media and the subsequent dominance of television, each has changed the character of the public discourse so necessary to modern liberal democracies. The latest development, which presents a rapidly moving target for researchers, is the online public sphere. The Internet has challenged the dominance of the traditional media, presented information in novel ways and raised questions about established definitions of news and the role of journalists and, above all, created a new public sphere. As with other new media, news on the Internet is taking on new forms, involving audiences in new ways (as both seekers for and providers of news and commentary), and is altering news consumption patterns. This paper explores these changes from the perspective of the audience. Drawing on recent survey data, including results from the World Internet Project, it examines patterns of news consumption and information seeking among different age groups and draws out implications for debates on the perceived credibility of traditional and online news and information sources.

All welcome

Venue: UTS, Guthrie Theatre
Cost: $450.00 per person.



 The Communications Policy & Research Forum 2007 will be held at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) on 24-25 September (Monday-Tuesday). Interest areas include ICT, digital media, telecommunications broadcasting, communications culture, Internet and e-commerce.

It is a research-oriented forum open to all viewpoints; a co-operative effort by policy and research centres. It is also a national meeting-place for researchers in all sectors. To see the papers and program from last year’s Forum, please click here.
Please feel welcome to submit a proposal or abstract to be on the platform for this year’s Forum. The closing date is 25 May. To download the 2007 call for papers and presentations, please click here.

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The Age Journalism Seminar May 31, 5pm-7pm BMW Edge, Federation Square Melbourne
Much of what readers see in their daily copy of The Age is the result of considerable work. Producing a major daily paper requires rigour, determination and the skills of a diverse range of talented people.

If you would like to gain further insight into journalism and the challenges and responsibilities of covering news for The Age, join us at this year’s Journalism
Seminar. This year panel features Liz Minchin, environment reporter, journalist Miki Perkins, photographer Marina Oliphant and online editor, James Farmer.

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Illogic of Sense: The Gregory L. Ulmer Remix
Edited by Darren Tofts and Lisa Gye.
Design by Joel Swanson (hippocrit.com).

Contributors include Niall Lucy, Jon McKenzie, Linda Marie Walker, Craig Saper, Rowan Wilken, Marcel O’Gorman, Teri Hoskin, and Michael Jarrett, with an introduction by editors Tofts and Gye.

Mark Amerika’s press release

“Illogic of Sense: The Gregory L. Ulmer Remix” is an exciting new ebook publication that employs theorist Gregory Ulmer’s invocation to invent new forms of electronic writing. As the ebook’s editors, Darren Tofts and Lisa Gye, write in their brilliant introduction, “Ulmer has been at the forefront of thinking about new cultural formations as the paradigm of literacy converges with digital culture.” Ulmer’s work has been central to contemporary thinking on the future of writing and his international presence as one of the leading figures in media arts discourse has influenced a multitude of disciplines from electronic literature and Internet art to critical theory, communications studies, and art history. The ebook features a diverse group of artists, theorists, and creative writers who develop new forms of hybridized “digital rhetoric.” Their inventive and audacious experiments take advantage of recent developments in the field of new media studies, and as part of Alt-X’s mission to participate in the creative commons provided by the Web, are available for free download.