Professional Documents
Culture Documents
COM 203
Charles Jurries
Instructor: Dr. Bob
Essay #2
BlackBerrys, iPhones and Droids. Today’s smartphones utilize internet and streaming
data for a variety of functions, including maps, traffic information and music, among others, all
available on a pocket-sized device. An emerging technology for these advanced data phones is
known as “Augmented Reality,” a service that can scan whatever the phone is looking for, and if
it recognizes the person, place or object in its database, will then give you any available
information to be found, right then and there. Scan an apartment building, and find out if there
are any units for sale. At an art museum, scan a work of art and find out more information than
the plaque can give. This technology has the ability to be more than just “cool,” it could be
The news business is struggling, losing newspaper profits, failing to make substantial
amounts of money on the internet, all but giving up on radio, and having TV news be the butt of
many jokes. However, the news industry needs to work on archiving and cataloging their news
data now, in order to take advantage of these mobile technologies. Failure to plan ahead will
result in news organizations potentially losing valuable public information, looking “out of
touch” with technologies and failing to give the news where their audience has migrated.
Newspapers used to be “the news,” the only other medium to disseminate information
other than word-of-mouth. As such, newspapers were treated with a certain degree of care and
respect, and archived accordingly. A visit to any number of public libraries will show
look back and see the news of the day. However, most news web sites, offer only up to two years
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of online content, some charging for access to the archives. If you are not willing to pay, then,
the data disappears completely from your internet. (LexisNexis, a popular internet archive and
research site, charges users for full access to their content as well.) Many local news web sites do
not offer a archive system for users, nor provide adequate searching for outdated stories. In order
A backlog of stories would allow for “perspective” when it comes to Augmented Reality
mobile applications. While researching that apartment complex on your phone, the most recent
story may be about a murder that took place recently, whereas a story from eight years ago
would show the complex won an award for being environmentally friendly. When at the art
museum, you would be able to know the last time that specific artists was featured in that
building, where all the art has been over the past decade or two. If the information was
considered important enough to be mentioned years ago, it is certainly worth mentioning once
again years later, in the spirit of context and understanding (Outing, 2003).
some likability in the eyes of the public. Only 20-30 percent of Americans believe what
traditional media outlets have to say, according to the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism
(Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2009). If news organizations want to regain the
popularity that most of us desire from our peers, they need to give others a reason to like them.
The first step in this would be by meeting people with new and emerging technologies, not
playing catch-up like many have and are doing with the internet and mobile.
As of April, 2009, Apple has sold well over 35 million units able to take advantage of
their applications (Marsal, 2009). The audience for mobile applications and technologies is
already there, and growing. With more “standard” cell phones becoming equipped with more
advanced technologies, it is not inconceivable that by the year 2020, the standard cell phone will
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be predominately used for data, and will be able to use applications. However, news
organizations shouldn’t wait for a New York Times cover story or a memo from the Poynter
Institute to tell them they need to get ready and figure out a strategy on how to meet and develop
this technology now. By the time the mobile audience is as standard as the web audience is now,
it will be too labor-intensive to try to take the digital back-catalog and figure how to adapt it a
mobile technology. Experiment with the technology now; develop how to display news
alongside the real estate and entertainment listings, and the audience will be thankful.
Why would they be thankful? You wouldn’t just get information on what something is
about, you would be able to know if it was controversial, if it inspired a community, if it was at
the center of a crime that inspired an episode of LAW AND ORDER. People may not trust the
news, but they still consume it in some small ways. By giving them relevant data in a relevant
manner, a way that is not preaching to them but rather, simply informing them, the news could
once again become a useful part of the everyday life. It would serve a different function, that of a
collaborator with other functions, rather than a stand-alone unit. Yet, in a day and age where
there’s all but no credibility left to lose, and everything to gain, with mediums that are dying or
broken, experimentation with technology like Augmented Reality, could be beneficial to not just
the news industry, but the industry’s relations with the public.
Bibliography
Marsal, K. (2009, April 23). Apple's iPod touch sales double, nearly on par with
iPhone. Retrieved November 24, 2009, from AppleInsider:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/04/23/apples_ipod_touch_sales_double_nea
rly_on_par_with_iphone.html
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Outing, S. (2003, January 8). Poynter Online. Retrieved November 24, 2009, from
The Archiving Mess: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=16322
Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism. (2009). Public Attitudes . Retrieved from
Journalism.org:
http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2009/narrative_overview_publicattitudes.php?
cat=3&media=1