Talking Point

Are journalists changing their opinion of social media?

Fairfax’s embrace of all things digital media does not extend to bloggers.

While attempting to promote the recently launched The Age of Conversation book about the rise of social media and authored by more than 100 bloggers, a Fairfax journalist told a fellow contributor that they could not promote the work of bloggers because management saw them as competitors.

Are journalists and media organisations changing their opinions of bloggers and citizen reporters?

We’ve seen evening news bulletins and daily newspapers running stories on politicians invading citizen media sites like YouTube. I’ve heard leading political commentators like ABC Radio National’s Fran Kelly talk up social media as a political campaign tool of the future. Now, it would appear the editorial managers of a major Australian media group think giving a few bloggers a plug in one of their newspapers is bad for business.

Going Forward anyone?

We’ve all been guilty of it haven’t we? A momentary lapse in commonsense that allows hollow corporate rhetoric such as “going forward” “at the end of the day” and ‘synergies” to crawl their way into our everyday language.

Sydney Morning Herald columnist, Paul Sheehan, has taken an angry swipe at our corporate jargon protagonists in today’s paper. It’s jam packed with many fine examples of linguistic vandalism and made me pause and reflect on one of my personal favouriates in the last five years; strawman. Apparently it’s got nothing to do with keeping crop eating birds away from your farms or the Wizard of Oz but puzzling description of the topics one must cover in their communications plan.

Paul’s article is well worth a read and reminds us that as trusted communications advisors we should be helping our customers (not clients) drag their messages out of the increasingly toxic sludge of meaningless language.

It's YouTube week in Federal Parliament

Social media seems to be one of the topics of the week among our political commentators. But while our politicians are increasingly using social media tools like YouTube and MySpace to carry their political messages, creativity seems to be sorely lacking. Check this latest piece on YouTube from our PM John Howard. It hardly oozes the fun, vibrant and irrevant tone to videos YouTube users have come to so dearly admire. The PM's stiff and conservative style clearly makes him the wrong person to be delivering the party's message in this forum. The hammering the video got in the comments forum is evidence of that and according a few people speaking on tonight's ABC Radio PM program, a John Howard policy mesaage would be the last thing they would log onto YouTube for.

Full credit to both parties for recognising the legitimacy of social media. But rather than replicating the standard approach of talking to a static camera, maybe they would be better to find people more connected, popular and credible with YouTube style audiences and develop creative ways to deliver their messages.

Libs shunning MySpace - Report

From SMH.com.au

The Federal Liberal Party appears to be snubbing MySpace, after the social network publicly criticised the Liberals' response to its new Impact political channel.

With a string of disastrous polls spelling death for the Howard Government you would think they would be using as many communications channels they can get their paws on to get their message out there.

The Age of Conversation has arrived

Wow two posts in two days. It's been a while since my last regular blogging foray - a symptom of a newborn baby at home and busy clients at work. But what better way to get back into the swing of things than with today's launch of "The Age of Conversation" - a book resulting from the collaboration of 103 authors from around the world, most of whom have never met or spoken to each other.

I had the pleasure to contribute to the book, which charts the movement towards social media and the new marketing/media/PR landscape it has created.

Not only did the authors contribute their thoughts and expertise to the publication but also any payment in favour of donating profits to the children's charity, Variety. You can purchase a copy of the book in hard cover, soft cover and e-version here.

You can also join the conversation on the myriad of topics the books covers including citizen journalism at our blog or Facebook group.

Congratulations to all my fellow authors as well as Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan for conceiving the idea and pulling everything together.

 

MySpace friends flock to Rudd

Friends mean a lot in politics and if MySpace is any indication Kevin Rudd will romp it in come the next federal election. Almost 6000 people have become the Labor leader’s “friend” in MySpace, compared with a dismal eight lonely souls barracking for the Howard Government. Individual Government ministers seam to be fairing better with Malcolm Turnbull boating 126 friends and Joe Hockey registering 339 fans.

The presence of our elected leaders on MySpace points to the growing use of the Internet and its social media tools by political parties to reach increasing disparate and disaffected audiences, particularly young people. The Australian media, once dismissive of social media as a flash in the pan, are also recognizing its power as a potent political weapon with the Sydney Morning Herald declaring the “You Tube” election in a feature article last Saturday.