How much of the agenda can 'new media' wrest from the mainstream?

Which brings me to the next category of alternatives: the Indymedia-style “open source” publishers. Many of these publications died in or shortly after the 2000 dot-com crash but some remain. They usually have a hard core of die-hard supporters and occasionally produce some interesting, informative and genuinely original content - but often they are mired in internecine flame wars, overt agendas and factual liberties which erode their credibility and influence. The Harvard-sponsored Blogs, Journalism and Credibility conference didn’t expressly address these organisations but may as well have. It did, however, note the advent of some new attempts at the same desired outcome, and noted the fragility of trust and credibility among the blogging community.

But “public journalism” is not new. What’s new is that the barriers to publication and distribution have been lowered - and the animals have been released without editorial or ethical constraints. This has added another dimension to coverage - particularly of contentious events (like the S11 and other protests) and raised a few issues. Certainly, it has helped maintain the rage among the faithful but it rarely impinges on the “mainstream” consciousness, just as Green Left Weekly or Resistance don’t.

What other alternatives are there? There’s the increase in in-house publication, made possible by the same lowered barriers. Organisations such as the Centre for Independent Studies, Australia Institute and various other think tanks can now publish their own research and newsletters directly to the web. This has been a great leap forward for them. It is usually credible and original but their content still amounts to niche-interest and they rely for promotions on the usual channels of op-eds in newspapers, faces commenting on TV and so on.

Some years ago I argued that the ability of special-interest publishers to create their own websites would reduce their reliance on “mainstream” publications to promote themselves. I’m now not so sure that’s correct to the extent I thought it was then. These publishers are a classic case in point.

Although new media publishing has made it easier for these groups to maintain a following - via e-newsletters and online subscription, mainly - it has not made it easier to gain attention. People have to hear about the CIS and its views before they Google the organisation’s website - and they do that either via the gatekeepers of mainstream journalism or via word-of-mouth recommendations from other converts. Of course, the latter has proved extremely effective at distributing viruses and chain mail … but that’s a topic for another article.

These guys suffer from being at the wrong end of the power-law distribution that so benefits existing “mainstream” publications. People have limited resources in their quest for information, so inevitably very few sources meet the vast bulk of their needs. If you can only meet a few of those needs, you struggle for a place in people’s lives.

Which brings me to the On Line Opinion kind of publication. It has many interactive facets, synthesises others’ content and also produces original content. It provides something that the “mainstream” media don’t do very well - and keeps the quest for objective truth, rational discussion and an informed populus alive. It appeals to a broad audience and acts as conduit to other media sources that meet people’s needs. It makes best possible use of the features unique to new media. This is almost perfect - if only it had the newsgathering resources of News Limited …

When will “online and alternative media” come of age? They already have. The only questions remaining are how much of the agenda can they wrest from the majors; who will get how much of it; and how many of them will Murdoch acquire or destroy before he figures out that his generic “digital natives” are as illusory as the generic readers that newspapers editors have chased since Lord Northcliffe.

Happy Birthday On Line Opinion. I miss being at the centre of the operation.