Towards professional participatory storytelling in journalism and advertising

Mark Deuze from Deuzeblog has written an excellent essay in Firstmonday. It is a slightly rewritten version of the Dutch essay with the title: Journalistiek en reclamemaken als collaboratief proces and the english pdf of the MITwebsite. It is worth reading and reflecting about the content.

Some quotes:

"We are using more media than ever before in history, yet this intensive engagement with media does not translate into more attention paid to the stories told by the two archetypical media professions: journalism and advertising."

"In a contemporary ecology where American and Dutch people of every ilk seem to be immersing themselves almost constantly in media, those still earning the bulk of their salaries producing media content do not or even cannot see them as their peers."

"The astounding rise of the mass media throughout the twentieth century owes much of its success to filling a temporary void between the demise of our trust in (as well as reliance on and allegiance to) social institutions and the emergence of a perhaps over–zealous faith in ourselves"

Below you can find the abstract of the essay and the content with links to the essay.

Technorati tags: journalism, advertising

"Abstract
The Internet — specifically its graphic interface, the World Wide Web —
has had a major impact on all levels of (information) societies
throughout the world. For media professionals whose work has primarily
been defined as creative storytelling — whether in advertising,
journalism, public relations or related fields — this poses fascinating
opportunities as well as vexing dilemmas. The central question seems to
be to what extent storytelling can be content– or connectivity–based,
and what level of participation can or should be included in the
narrative experience. Although these two issues have been part of
creative decision–making processes in media work before the Web, new
technologies of production, distribution and communication are
‘supercharging’ them as the central dilemmas in the contemporary media
ecosystem. This paper discusses the history and contemporary examples
of media work combining various elements of storytelling as a hybrid
form between content and connectivity, and considers the normative and
economical implications for the professional identity of media workers
in journalism and advertising."

The content of the essay with the links:

Introduction
Journalism
Advertising
Professional identity of media work
Participatory storytelling
Concluding remarks