A New Media by Cat Mungcal

In addition to the major American and international newspapers and televisions stations, countless independent publications (including your very own) made the journey to DC; but they were not the only ones writing about the Inauguration. Now, thanks to Web 2.0 tools: texting, blogs, Youtube, and social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter, it is now easier than ever to share news stories or write (or record) and share commentary on current events.

Major stations like CNN and FOX are beginning to harness this new wave of interaction not only by starting their own pages on Facebook and Myspace and asking viewers to comment on stories; but actually using them as sources. When unarmed, 22 year old, Oscar Grant was shot and killed by a police officer on New Year’s Day at a busy train station in Oakland, California; there were at least 10 different recordings that were uploaded to Youtube. Within days, these recordings gathered thousands of views, and major stations have used them in their news segments. For Al Jazeera English (AJE), Web 2.0 has become its doorway into the American radar. During the 9/11 attacks, Osama Bin Laden sent his videos to the Al Jazeera Arabic news station to be broadcasted, which has created a lot of resistance against the English channel; but instead of retreating, AJE has built up not only its website but its Youtube channel and has created a Twitter page so “Followers” can receive headlines in real-time. One station, Current TV, allows viewers to control all televised content through Viewer Created Content that is voted on by website visitors. During the Presidential Debates, they utilized Twitter, a micro-blogging site that allowed viewers to make their own commentary on what they saw and heard.

While there have always been questions about who is actually unbiased in their depiction of the news, this new media raises a new kind of questions: questions that are actually about us as viewers. Will we develop a healthy level of post-modernism that admits this writer, this blog, this video segment, speaks from his or her own experiences and therefore cannot be the definitive source on this issue? Because Web 2.0 requires entire stories to be chopped up into sound bites and headlines, will we admit to our own finite minds and cultivate a discipline that seeks to know and understand a few issues deeply, or will we be simply collecting things to “fact drop” on the Green Space or in between classes in Carlson? The power of this new media can be harnessed; the question is how will you use it?