elearnspace

Industries and fields which are largely reliant on information have been experiencing a long, slow burn which threatens to ignite into a full blaze at any moment. We see flare ups in music, movie, and other media industries. But the music/movie industries still retain much of their shape – top YouTube videos are mainstream artists like Avril Lavigne. To a certain degree, it’s the old product expressed in a new distribution channel. But journalism and news fields are different. Their product (“the paper” or “the radio talk show”) has been subject to change for over a decade. And many have moved online to varying levels. The challenge they have faced recently – and which Scott Karp alludes to briefly as being of a change-or-die nature (be sure to read the comments section – some good points made on both sides) – is with the core of journalism. Karp calls for journalism to reinvent itself. With sites like ohmynews and tools like blogs and podcasts driven by user contributions, the change to journalism may be more profound than even those who are calling for change wish to see. As stated before, I follow these media trends with an eye on their suitability as an indication of what we’ll face in education. As so many elements are unsettled (copyright, access, ownership, LMS vs. PLEs and so on), any model that serves to guide is valuable, even if it is found in the slow burn of traditional media industries.