I surveyed 203 students, across all class years and majors. The primary characteristic I’m using to group respondents is their perceived level of news consumption, and we have a fairly logical spread to pull from: 38% of students are low news consumers, 50% are moderate news consumers, and 13% are high news consumers. Part of me expected more students in a collegiate environment to consider themselves high news consumers, especially with the huge numbers of political science and economics majors at Wellesley, but enough people fall into the moderate category to make up for it.

Continuing forwards, highlighting interesting initial summaries: 92% of students consume news online, through newspaper websites, blogs. etc. A respectable 58% read print sources, 54% watch television news, and 52% consume news through their social networks. 79% receive news through word of mouth. When I asked for a primary method of news consumption, however, 65% of students cited online sources and blogs, which is huge. 16% fell to word of mouth, and only 3% responded with print sources. We already knew this (or thought we knew this) but the data wholly supports our assumption that news consumption has moved online.

Another interesting response comes from a question about people’s thoughts while reading the news – I offered the following options:

– How the story affects you personally
- How the story relates to your work
- How the story affects the world at large
- Recent conversations with peers on the subject
- How you could integrate the story into conversation
- Whether the story is in agreement with your previously held opinions
- Who else might be interested in the story

Respondents could pick more than one response, of course, but one response clearly won out above the others: how the story affects the world at large (84%). I’m pretty proud (and a little surprised) that that won out; perhaps our generation is a little less self-obsessed than everyone seems to believe. Other big hitters included personal effect (59%), recent conversations (53%), agreement with the story (54%), and who to share the news with (47%). Considering that those all point to news consumption facilitating a greater conversation with peers, it’s another pretty exciting response.

A final response that I find exciting, and perhaps my favorite: more than half of respondents believe that news “comes to them” (53%), as opposed to their having to search it out (47%). The distinction between 53 and 47 percent isn’t huge, but it’s pretty apparent that five or ten years ago, very few people would have agreed that news “comes to them.” It’s online social networking at work!

There is a lot more data, especially from a long series of situational questions about where students heard a specific story and whether they verified, shared, or explored the story further, but the analysis has yet to be done.

First of all, Wilhelm’s focus on access to the media challenges everything I’m mulling over. He writes that low-income communities are victims of technology disenfranchisement, and he’s right.

“Perhaps the highest-order digital literacy is for citizens to be media producers, not just passive consumers, to use available outlets to voice their hopes and concerns, to be citizen-producers. For this to happen, widespread access to digital media is critical as well as the training and mentoring to cultivate young people’s talents. …Significant digital divides exist in access and training, particularly acute in high-poverty and rural communities.”

The problem of digital disenfranchisement could bring down any journalistic effort aimed at democratically bringing a larger social news conversation to the public; such a conversation’s legitimacy is brought into question when a whole segment of the population lacks access.

On the other hand, Wilhelm looks to Congress and the government to solve the problems he sees in digital divides and information. He says:

“Democratic, legitimate Digital Nations in the twenty-first century will use the potential of networked intelligence and the promise of decentralization as the primary arterials for human empowerment and liberation.”

I agree. However, he continues:

“Action is needed from the US Congress to establish a fund to address the key challenges of achieving a Digital Nation. The fund could be derived from various sources, and the strategy for how best to move legislation in support of a Digital Nation trust fund will depend on political exigencies.”

News organizations and journalists could achieve the ends Wilhelm sees achieved by the government, as long as a profit model can be found. Corporations certainly move faster than Congress, and as long as we’re viewing journalism as a democratic act central to the process of governing, it might as well also take on part of the challenges of achieving a Digital Nation. Isn’t the following something journalism could help achieve?

“In the end, a Digital Nation must be a reflection of a democratic society having harness the best technology can offer in pursuit of the well-being and edification of its people. The interactive, asynchronous, and portable attributes of the new technologies offer a compelling invitation to reform and revamp outwork institutions and organizations, creating avenues for deeper participation and accountability…. Navigating this society will require that people be motivated and empowered to invent their own futures, buoyed by a new social contract in which rampant inequalities sown by the acquisitive spirit are tempered by the tender embrace of liberty, equality, and solidarity.”

But wouldn’t it be better to change the tone of that information completely? What if instead of being bombarded by insta-updates about things that don’t really matter, we could tune in to real conversations about the issues that need to be discussed? Everything I’m reading about journalism points to the responsibility journalists have to bring issues and information to the public and to help create an informed democracy. Even more, everything I’m reading about social media points to the intelligence and power of a crowd. Can’t we funnel our collective interest in the world and the internet into a more powerful and important conversation?

It also seems as if people wouldn’t be interested in a such a conversation. We are drawn to information that directly concerns us: updates from our friends or about our distinct interests. (And to celebrities, but that’s another story.) With the changes in commenting structures and social commenting/networking for news articles, however, it seems possible to build a model for greater conversations of issues with members of our social network in a way that could actually interest people.

It just seems logical and helpful to replace some of the quickfire (and useless) second-by-second updates about nothing with quickfire responses to a greater conversation, if it could hold our attention.

Such a beautiful little GUI. It goes with this boarding pass:

Anyways, on to the real TUI marvels.

First of all, check out the phone. It splits into two pieces, one which can be an earpiece and one that can be a video-chat screen.

Apparently, one of the pieces can also be an augmented-reality-gps tool that shows you a floor plan of your immediate location with superimposed directions.

Even better, the two pieces connect back together to make a social media tool to set up meetings (with the help of the phone/GPS combo). When this flips back shut, it’s just a cell phone again.

Next: the most amazing keychain of all time. The phone (above) seems to also carry the qualities of the keychain. When they are set down on the interactive tabletop, every file necessary to your life appears on the table. The keychain is an insta-link to your entire online life, and everything you need appears on command. Here’s the tabletop with just the phone laid down:

Here’s what appears around the keychain:

And when the two are put together, the tabletop becomes an amazing collaborative workspace that knows what projects you’ve been working on, what your last correspondence was, and what files you’ll need.

This is cool too: an office computer station. All of the portals are just glass panes (until all of your information is displayed)… and these portals are everywhere.

What’s better, there is a super sweet mouse-esque tool that allows for multi-touch input, dragging, etc. It responds with different visualizations based on touch.

It is a little weird to me that they’re sticking so clearly to the mouse/keyboard system, but I suppose that’s to be expected. I think it’ll be a long time before everyday consumers change their dependence on a mouse and keyboard.

This is great too- a remote control for your entire life. You can control your personal computer-screen-on-the-wall (which, by the way can show you information about your house, or the weather, or your to-do list, or anything, really).

It, too, is made of glass.

Here’s what’s really cool- it can “photograph” (select) a project…

and MOVE IT to another interface location, where it will display for your use.

Speaking of that newspaper, I’ve been saving the best for last. It’s a practically single-page newspaper (which kind of seems like the Times Reader to me) that changes to display different stories. It’s like a giant… eInk paper interface.

You can slide stories off the page…

Or select them for more information.

Man, it’s just all SO impeccably beautiful. I suppose that the TUI elements aren’t exactly new to the scene, but they’re very well rendered and the ways that they interact is very well thought-out. I especially want that keychain and that newspaper. Oh, and this secretary-y space, for when I’m scheduling out my life:

And how cool is this, for a last thought? The room knows where you’re headed and projects an arrow going in the right direction on the floor in front of you. Amazingly useful, especially for the more directionally-challenged among us. (I’m good with a map, but I’ve traveled with quite a few people who aren’t… and they could definitely use that arrow.)

What I’m trying to say is (in true 30 Rock fashion): I want to go to there.

Rheingold writes about his observation of the growth of “texting” as a new means of communication; he notes that everyone seems to be looking at their phones instead of talking into them. The conclusion is made that the growth of mobile Internet will increase the importance of our mobile phones, bringing every piece of information we might need into our palms. Ironically, I took a break from reading the piece to pick up a call and to check my Facebook, both on my iPhone.

This current vision of iPhones and Android-powered devices was a legitimate hypothesis for the future 10 years ago. What’s so funny to me is that our current legitimate hypotheses for the future are comprised of what used to be true scifi and fantasty- appliances that talk to each other and surfaces embedded with giant glass computer screens, everything communicating wirelessly. All that seems to be missing is flying cars, but since it’s become obvious that the car industry is lagging a bit these days, I’m not surprised. Seriously, the future we’re moving into is a legitimate version of Minority Report meets The Fifth Element meets The Jetsons.

At any rate, I was inspired by Rheingold’s introduction; it conjured up visions of my cell phone morphing into an epic remote control with the immense power to deliver me every miniscule piece of information about everything (and everyone) on the planet. His discussion of the pros and cons of this social networking is powerful, and we have already seen the manifestations of much of it (consider Iran this summer).

I just wish he had published something more recently; I’m off now to watch his TED talk, but it’s from 2005. I’m also following him on Twitter, but it’s not yielding much. I’m more interested in what he has to say ABOUT twitter than what he’s saying on twitter, if that makes sense. No upset here, though; I respect Social Mobs enough to leave it at that and walk away pleased.

… and what does this have to do with journalism, you ask? It has everything to do with journalism, because journalism is the democratic act of bringing information from citizens to other citizens. And that is exactly what the social mobs revolution is doing.

Campbell discusses Joseph Pulitzer’s view of journalism, taken from the early 20^th century. Pulitzer insisted that journalists must take their profession to the next level, taking an interest in “public questions, public causes, public welfare, public good… The paper I regard as a public institution.” I couldn’t help but ask myself- are these values that are missing in today’s news media? Certainly, journalists believe they are spreading information for the good of the public, but it the news media really holding up its end of the bargain as a truly public institution? Sometimes, it seems as if journalists are simply chronicling the elite of the nation, and, as Campbell writes, journalists seem “dubious of ordinary people’s competence as citizens.” As James Carey of Columbia University has agreed, “that worldview… permeates contemporary journalism and has debased, rather than enlarged, that craft.” A change must occur, both in the way journalists view their readership and the way that the readership interacts with journalism.

So, Campbell asks how journalists can better convey information, better paint a picture of our reality- this is obviously easier when journalists respect the intelligence of their readership. He writes, “How can citizens connect the troubles in their lives with the issues in the larger public sphere? How can journalists help citizen develop more capacity to use information and reason to create meaning [and] explore values?” C Wright Mills of Columbia University notes that “we journalists have a great opportunity to develop ‘the journalistic imagination’ to better connect what happens in the larger world to the troubles in people’s private lives.” With today’s technology, it’s possible that this convergence of public and private problems seems possible. A combination of personal social media and news-based social media has the power to spread news and information that is deeply linked to one’s personal life, and an aggregate feed of personal blogs could have the power to tell a news story in a deeply personal manner.

On that note, Campbell discusses Slashdot.org, a blog for “nerds” run by Rob Malda and Jeff Bates. The blog was a pioneer in aggregating news and allowing for user commenting and discussion, and is a model for all news organizations on the web. This type of personalized community is powerful, for it both allows a group of like-minded users to collectively split up the duties of sifting through news stories and allows them to collectively discuss and expand upon the news.

For those of us without a community like Slashdot, it is harder to process the information thrown at us every day. “We are drowning in information and starving for wisdom,” wrote biologist E O Wilson. He continues, “The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.” In the Internet age, this more and more true every day. Even with my familiarity and comfort with the Internet, I often feel like I’m drowning in information. Journalists must find a way to become effective synthesizers, and technology can help. There are ways to highlight a deeper story, to find patterns and meaning in the epic pile of available information.

As Campbell writes, “We need to transform our newsrooms into open cultures- open to learning from citizens, communities, our colleagues in other parts of the organization. If we don’t, we’ll never find a way to enlarge journalism, probe deeper, and initiate great arguments.” This is true on many levels, and every day it becomes more obvious that journalists and citizens need to work together with mutual respect, as they can help each other understand our world. With the way citizens now interact over the internet, journalists have no choice but to accept the help of citizens and respect the journalism that citizens are producing. The question is- where is the line between citizen and journalist? If journalists respect citizens as just fully competent and citizens begin to synthesize information for themselves (this has already happened with blogs, etc. obviously) – how do we distinguish the two roles? How does the role of a “journalist” change? Aren’t we all journalists?

Related things to note, perhaps:

Chris Anderson’s new definitions of journalism, news, media, and other related terms

New way of socially commenting on articles, linking news to your personal life and social network.