The dangers of networking between groups in Watts' book really struck a chord with me. As a member of the campus newspaper, it has become increasingly obvious that change is needed. We have an online presence, but it is still in its infancy. As we start bringing video and audio aspects to our site, we start having overlap with our online television station on campus, and, if we were ever at the level where we could be reviewing music online, we could potentially have overlap with our online radio station.
This raised several very important questions. Namely, what should our media organizations do? Do we continue separately, possibly duplicating content and competing directly with our fellow media groups on campus? Do we coordinate and tackle ideas separately? Do we join forces?
Blasphemy, right? Combine several old forms of media into a new conglomerate. It's like throwing all the old forms into the blender and lapping up the abattoir remains like cannibals. Even though this is already happening on a magical little place known to a rare few as the internet. And contrary to some doctoral students that seem convinced that the internet will shrink as soon as the economy recovers, I think the internet is doing alright for itself as a source of news and information.
We can see this happening already; news broadcasts on television say that more information can be found online or in a newspaper, or vice-versa. When a new medium comes along that is a one-stop shop for information that is increasingly being taken seriously, being assailed by information through only one medium seems almost classical and quaint. All this is invariably a bit harsh and a bit too much, but the basic question remains: why are we keeping media separated besides to preserve older institutions?
This is part one of my networking complications in real life. Part two stems from the fact that for some reason the people in charge of media and communication at our school in many ways are terrible at communicating internally and externally. This is not the fault of one individual or one organization, it is an organizational flaw that is inherent in almost every layer of our media.
For example, a recent dance hosted by our radio station had an event established on Facebook weeks before the event, but most of the invites were only sent days before. Someone posted how much they hate that these events are only announced a week before they happen, and the official radio response was "Ask us earlier, cus we know." As if people should constantly be checking with members involved in the media group to get information because it's too inconvenient to broadcast this information ahead of schedule. There are very few things right about this situation. And there have been similar instances with each branch of media on campus, to be sure.
The only official communication between these organizations is handled through an operating board. This board ultimately exists to deal with jobs, legal issues, and implementing new media groups, so perhaps it's not exactly the place to be discussing certain ideas between organizations. But the real kicker here is that this group has met once this entire semester. Technically twice, but the leaders of the media groups were not invited to the second one. So aside from hunting down the offices of different media members or stalking them on Facebook, the best way to get information on a different branch of the media is to go through the one person overlooking every media group, since as was made evident by the previous example each group may not see fit to broadcast information to everyone.
The institution seems to resist effective communication at nearly every level of organization, and there's no easy way to fix this. So I've begun encouraging the creation of a new level through my position: advertising.
Maybe I'm an anomaly as the only standard paid individual involved in advertising in student media, but advertising is quite isolated from the standard positions in media. Physically as well as intellectually, since all of the newspaper office is across the hall from my spacious, empty workspace. And for a change, this can be very beneficial. As our website goes through an overhaul and gets online advertising, the possibility of advertising through other media groups arose. Even if there is one aspect that could reach over all media groups, it seems this would be a step in the right direction towards expanding our media network.
Of course, Watts says this can be dangerous, and I'm well aware that certain members of our newspaper staff and opinion publication would invariably come to blows within minutes of working together. Would it be worth it? Could it potentially be successful? Where better to risk something like this than in an academic environment? Provided things pan out and there is even a possibility of forming some connections, I'll be eager to see what life is like beyond these steel caves.
