Last night’s Social Media Club meeting was certainly better than last month’s! It was a smaller group - six of us - and I feel like we started to make some progress on investigating the issues of new media vs. traditional media (including, of course, the question of whether it has to be one versus the other) - but there’s a lot still to unpack. The thing that struck me the most last night was the use of certain terminology to both disparage new media and prop up traditional media. The word in question last night was “artistic.”
A guy named Mike, whom I hadn’t met before, criticized vloggers/vidcasters by saying they aren’t professional, they aren’t trained… etc., etc., all the usual stuff… but then: “Professional videographers know how to find the art in a shot.”
So, videographers in traditional media are artists, not just amateur hacks. And that’s a good thing.
But - remember last month’s meeting? - bloggers are artists, and that’s a bad thing. Real reporters are much more serious, you see. They’re not just artistic. They’re professional.
Honestly, I am baffled by this.
“Artistic” is, at once, a compliment to certain people, and a dismissive wave of the hand to other people. Bloggers are unprofessional, irresponsible, unreliable, amateur hacks - and part of the problem is that they’re too artistic. But, vloggers/vidcasters are also unprofessional, irresponsible, unreliable, amateur hacks - and the problem is that they are not artistic enough.
I mentioned this disconnect to the meeting participants, but the discussion ended up going in a different direction, and I never heard an explanation of why artistic is sometimes good and sometimes bad in media. I wonder if people just say these things without really thinking about what they’re saying. I’m not sure, which is why I would’ve liked to discuss it further. Interestingly, Mike and a few others seemed to get very defensive when I asked the question. I don’t think I asked it in a confrontational or accusatory manner; I was honestly curious. Like I said, I think there’s a lot to unpack here. And yeah, it might get uncomfortable at times, but really, that’s part of the point.
I don’t want to just write it all off as, “Well, old media types are scared, and they say reactionary things, using whatever terminology suits at the time.” Because I really do think there’s more to it than that (although certainly, there’s quite a bit of that, too). I think it’s worth exploring in more depth.
Other quick thoughts from last night:
- Why the continued emphasis on drawing and maintaining lines between “bloggers” and “journalists?” Why is the divide so important?
- How and why do certain bloggers (e.g., Michael Arrington, Arianna Huffington) come to be known as journalists, not “just” bloggers? What is the tipping point? Why are labels important, anyway?
- I’m tired of being discussed as a third-person concept. Bloggers this, bloggers that. HELLO. I am a blogger, and I’m sitting right here. Instead of making a bunch of grandiose generalizations about bloggers, talk to me. And listen.
- Frankly I’m getting pretty tired of being verbally kicked around and talked about in dismissive ways because I’m “just a blogger.” Well, I’m a person. It’s really not cool to sit there and talk about how stupid and unimportant a large, diverse group of people is, when a bunch of them are in the room - and expect them not to notice or not to mind.
- Why do some people see “bloggers” as a monolith? Is it honest ignorance (just not knowing much about blogging), or willful ignorance? Again, why is it important to maintain this monolithic view, and the distinction of “blogger” and “not a blogger?”
- Somebody said last night, as if it were a bad thing, “We could’ve been having this conversation in a bar” - ostensibly to lament that there weren’t more people, or it wasn’t more structured, I guess. But I was thinking, “Yes, we could - and that would be awesome!” I love having conversations like that, at a bar or anywhere else - let’s just leave the egos, the stupid little power trips, the weird superiority complexes, all the rest of it, at the door.
- When managing online communities, don’t start from a place of condescension or assumed superiority. It puts people on the defensive and (rightly) pisses them off. Also, people rise to the expectations set for them.
Would write more, but gotta get going for now. Looking forward to more conversations like this - some at bars, some in conference rooms. :)
ETA: This Gaping Void cartoon makes me laugh. I thought it was somewhat relevant to, well, not really last night’s meeting in particular, but just a general type of conversation that tends to go on at social media events and unconferences.
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