Becoming Indispensable

1
Becoming Indispensable?

• 5th International Symposium
• on Online Journalism
• University of Texas, Austin
• Steve Klein, Coordinator of the Electronic
  Journalism Program
• George Mason University
• With Nam Thai, Instructional Research Center
• April 16-17, 2004

2
Becoming Indispensable?

• indispensablePronunciation
  (in"di-spen'su-bul), adj. 1. absolutely
  necessary, essential, or requisite
• an indispensable medium? 2. incapable of being
  disregarded or neglected an
  indispensable source of news?

3
Becoming Indispensable?
4
Becoming Indispensable?

• When I walk around the George Mason University
  campus in Fairfax, Va., everybody has one of
  these.
• In fact, instructors have to state in our syllabi
  that cell phones must be turned off during class!

5
Becoming Indispensable?

• Another indispensable form of media almost every
  student brings to campus is a portable music
  player.

6
Becoming Indispensable?
7
Becoming Indispensable?

• So
• Has online news become indispensable?
• Despite my 1995 dreams, not quite yet.
• Not until it becomes truly ubiquitous.
• Not until it becomes so easy to access and use
  that it becomes transparent a little like this
  scene from Minority Report.

8
Becoming Indispensable?

• So, when was the last time that a medium became
  clearly indispensable?

9
Becoming Indispensable?

• So, what news websites are students accessing?

10
Becoming Indispensable?

• Fred Durst or John Ashcroft?
• Paris Hilton or Hamad Karzai?
• Hillary Clinton or

11
Becoming Indispensable?

• My more sophisticated students get some of their
  news from Dennis Miller on CNBC.

12
Becoming Indispensable?

• Most of them know what Jon Stewart laughed about
  last night on The Daily Show on Comedy Central.

13
Becoming Indispensable?

• Young people are the hardest to reach segment of
  the political news audience (according to the Pew
  Research Center for the People the Press).

14
Becoming Indispensable?

• Today, 21 percent of young Americans under age 30
  regularly learn about the presidential campaign
  and the candidates from comedy shows like The
  Daily Show or Saturday Night Live and
  comedians like David Letterman and Jay Leno
  twice as many as could say this four years ago.
• http//abcnews.go.com/sections/ThisWeek/Politics/t
  helist040411.html

15
Becoming Indispensable?

• One out of every two young people say they
  sometimes learn about the campaign from comedy
  shows twice the rate among Americans age 30-49
  (27 percent) and four times the rate among people
  age 50 and older (12 percent).

16
Becoming Indispensable?

• For these young people, the content of the jokes,
  sketches and guest appearances on these programs
  is not a repeat of old information.
• Nearly half say that what they learn is something
  new something they had not known previously.

17
Thanks for your (continued?) attention.