How has American journalism been affected by digital technologies? What new skills and new knowledge are needed by reporters and editors assigned to cover the "cyber-beat"? How have traditional newspaper formats been altered, challenged and enhanced by the World Wide Web? Do the web and other aspects of the digital future threaten the very existence of newspapers in the long term?
These and other questions will be addressed in two "Journalism in Cyberspace" events: "Covering Cyberspace" (Thursday, Nov. 5) and "Digital Journalism" (Thursday, Nov. 12), both from 4-6pm in Bartos Theater, Building E15.
They are part of the Media in Transition series, a joint venture of the MIT Communications Forum, the Film and Media Studies Program, and the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation. A primary goal of the project is to establish a conversation among scholars, engineers, fiction writers, journalists, corporate leaders and policy makers about the political and cultural significance of emerging communications media.
The November 5 event, moderated by John Driscoll, editor-in-residence at the Media Lab and former editor at the Boston Globe, will include Hiawatha Bray, who writes a column on computers and cyberspace for the Boston Globe; Julian Dibbell, author of the upcoming My Tiny Life, a literary ethnography about the online society LambdaMOO; and Amy Harmon, who covers cyberspace for the New York Times.
On November 12, James Carey, the CBS Professor of International Journalism at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, will moderate a discussion with Reid Ashe, president and publisher of the Tampa Tribune; Ingrid Volkmer, professor of media and communication at the University of Augsburg (Germany) and Rob Fixmer, technology news editor at the New York Times.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on October 28, 1998.
