Pulp affection

I was checking out the New York Times to see if their new media facilities have changed since the last time I visited the website. Thinking back, it was the first newspaper in my memory where I experienced innovative reporting techniques with the use of multimedia. Well, it seems the Times is looking to set the bar higher again, and this time, it comes in the form of a stand-alone package – the Times Reader.

The main difference between the website and this new product is that the latter will charge a subscription fee and will only require a one-time download to view an entire issue rather than constant internet connectivity. These are two big differences.

Rather than setting up a paywall like the Wall Street Journal, which critics have said is an uphill battle in convincing readers to pay for something they expect to get for free, the Times has opted to create a brand new product instead. It is priced at $4.62 a week. Right off the bat, I find it quite strange. Similar to how the online component competes with its own print edition, this news Reader competes with online. I don’t understand how this new investment is supposed to increase their market share when it seems to be targeting its own existing customer base. I make this assertion because the features of the Times Reader attempt to make up for the weaknesses of online edition. But how will this attract more readers? Wouldn’t this new product draw online traffic away from the website? Readers aren’t going to change their existing choices to download this newsreader, before they’re convinced that the Times’s content is superior to the publications they’re already reading.

One important consideration is whether the Reader will contain any advertising. If not, I don’t understand how this would be economically viable for the publishing company behind the Times. I can’t imagine they can rely on subscription fees alone to support this endeavour, especially when it may be drawing traffic away from the website. But on the other hand, this could be a smart business move as it puts less reliance on advertising, an industry that took a huge hit in the aftermath of the financial crisis and which saw the bottom line of many newspapers approach precarious levels.

When it comes to usability, the format of the Reader is an interesting one. There are many things to consider here, and the first is the fact that it may be easier to use by doing it away with the need for constant internet connectivity. Readers can download the latest issue of the Times before they leave the house, and read at their leisure on the train, bus, or in a car pool ride on their commute. From what I can see of the introductory video, the Reader also offers a more intuitive layout and interface to read the paper. With this downloadable program, Adobe Air, the Times’ content no longer has to adhere to the html format which allows for more visual possibilities.

Though the Times Reader offers some interesting new features, and is a completely new concept in news consumption, I am still skeptical. I’m just not sure how a product which divides the Times’ existing customer base is a step forward. In fact, it’s a product that competes with one of the premier news websites in the world.

Publications expend capital to establish an online presence, hiring for permanent positions such as “social media coordinators” to deal with the online phenomenon in the media industry. They strike up partnerships with technology companies to create state-of-the-art content management systems.

Boing Boing, on the other hand, takes on a completely different approach to online publishing by establishing itself ground-up as a blog or an “e-zine.” Its wacky monicker reflects the style of content it runs; stories, pictures or videos that range from thought-provoking to the absurd – a neurotic Reader’s Digest of the internet – and adding a preface before each reference with a note from one of the editors. It’s an aggregate, but with a twist.

Its simplicity in the content (it requires very little legwork, if you can call it that for web-trolling for funny videos) means there’s no need for a newsroom full of journalists and support staff, and hence, a very small overhead. However, if I can be a bit of a wet rag, I’d like to point out that it offers little in the form of original content other than the humorous introductions written before each reference to content. Often times, clicking on the link takes you away from Boing Boing anyway. But we must give them credit for its ability to constantly find “stuff” that peaks the interest.

It’s fitting that rather than having a buffet of links like you would find on a newspaper website, Boing Boing stuck with the blog post layout with updates pushing older stories down the page one at a time. With the length of stories being no more than the length of a computer screen, readers get to scan over every update quickly by skimming over the posts that don’t interest them quickly until they find something they like. It also provides the feel of a blog, which is more appropriate to Boing Boing’s style anyway. This ensures that every post gets attention, rather than on a website where a reader could miss certain headlines. This is due to the fact that news content is strictly categorized. In the study of consumer behaviour, the concept of “selective attention” holds weight here as readers could often skip over entire sections that do not fit in their interests. Unless a reader specifically filters the posts by category, Boing Boing’s blog format ensures every post gets at least a glance-over.

This basement-style media website offers the multimedia fix that anyone could ever want. In fact, that’s all you get. Watching funny videos or looking at insane pictures all day is like eating a tub-full of cookie dough by yourself. It could be immensely enjoyable throughout, but it leaves you with a nauseous feeling afterwards.

Though many traditionalists in the industry would scoff at the idea of calling Boing Boing journalism, there is one thing it does right and that’s having an eye for stories where “the man bites the dog.”

English translation (please click on “captions” for more information on the subjects): Excerpt from performance (-2:18): Together, we created a story which mimics us as people, brings us together and illustrates what makes us human. It’s a compilation of what we have accepted as our past. It’s a piece that shows an ongoing recording of events for the purpose of creating diverse memories of which we must all know. Catherine Ruel (-1:55): I’m a comedian in training. To me, theatre is simply an audience watching an actor. I think what I love the most is to be in front of the audience, the moment where we share all that we have worked on. I know actors and actresses who enjoy rehearsals, but I feel like I’m always in rehearsal even when I’m in front of an audience. I love the moment of sharing. Stephanie Legare (-1:13): [In the UQAM stage-setting program], there’s décor, which is our main concentration. We study Italian décor at the beginning, then we study décor in multiple configurations and installation, so we touch on the arts. Then we study costumes. We start with period costumes all the way to contemporary styles. There’s also puppets: we study their construction and mechanical aspects. Then there’s lighting and sound. It’s a combination of technique and vision. What I love about theatre the most is there’s a magic in theatre which cinema doesn’t have, it’s less fake. It’s realistic, it’s raw and the characters have more presence. The décor is real, and I find it brings more to the audience because of the proximity. I prefer small rooms because of that. We’re so close to what’s going on and it offers more to our senses.

A bar graph illustrating the rates of uninsured Americans in the last three years, organized by state.

Theatre is a human instinct. The desire to tell stories and express meaning through performance has existed from the primordial age, to the classical myths of the classical age and to the timelessness of Shakespearean playwriting of the Elizabethan era. Today, in Montreal, the modern manifestation of such a storied tradition is going strong whether it is in established playhouses or in underground venues waiting to be uncovered in the city.

But how can one define theatre? Is it just telling stories? Would it be satisfying to merely say that it is a live performance on stage? One that is structured according to acts, scenes and paragraphs of dialogue? How do the prop designers, stage managers, make-up artists and the director among others fit into the definition? We can hardly make a definition more accurate by continuously attaching more specifications to it.

Theatre performance combines elements from multiple disciplines: aesthetics in stage design, costume design, literary expression and acting, among others. It is difficult to pinpoint its essence because of its complexity: there is just so much going on during a performance on artistic and technical levels. For example, a playwright can spend years creating a script: painstakingly honing the arc of the story, cultivating its characters and measuring the weight of each word in crucial parts of the story. The actors explore and rehearse the lines, channeling the meaning of the words as intended by the author into a live performance. Prop designers interpret the imagery described in the play, crafting objects and backdrops to provide authenticity, atmosphere and a sense of time and place for the audience.

Though a play is supposed to adhere to the script, it is by no means a strict reiteration of the words in print. Live performance is organic; it makes recorded performances look static in comparison. According to What is Theatre?: an Introduction and Exploration written by John Russell Brown: “a theatre production is never ‘fixed’ once and for all but will be made all over again at every performance and will be slightly different each time a new audience enters the theatre and shares what is happening onstage.” Unlike a set where actors and directors can do different takes until they get it right, things can happen on stage that are beyond anyone’s control. It is part of the experience. An actor or actress can deviate slightly from the lines by a word or two even after repeated rehearsal. They may be standing in a slightly different spot on stage in relation to their props. The timing of their actions can vary, all of which have an effect on how the performance is perceived by the audience. Though a story is told in relative isolation from reality, theatre accounts for a degree of uncertainty on how things will play out in its undertaking.

Theatre also plays a role in society. According to Brown, “today in the United States and other European nations, the political intentions of many theatres are limited to what is called “raising consciousness” about certain issues, rather than active campaigning for political action…yet few of these groups are unaware of their social role as educators and their opportunity to instigate debate about the needs and future of a rapidly changing society.” Theatre creates the debate by bringing important issues to the fore that matter to the people who practice it and those who watch it. For example, Michel Tremblay, one of the most prolific playwrights of Quebec, gained international fame and accolade from his groundbreaking plays which embody the spirit and identity of Quebec as they asserted themselves in the post-Quiet Revolution era in the 60s. According to l’Agence Goodwin, a theatre agency that represents playwrights and actors in Montreal, Tremblay’s characters represent the blue-collar class and explore issues dealing with homosexuality – both highly relevant to the transformation of Quebec society at the time.

But the relationship between theatre and society is not one-sided. What happens in the community can have a large impact on the practitioners. According to the Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia, English theatre suffered greatly in Quebec under the Rene-Levesque government: “The post-René-Lévesque-election anglo exodus of 1976 (which saw over 100,000 anglophones leave Quebec) had a profound effect on theatre in two ways: artists were lost and a large group of the ever-important upwardly-mobile Anglo theatre goer was lost.” This occurrence highlighted an important facet of theatre: in order to have a healthy theatre scene, we not only need a healthy community of practitioners but also an enthusiastic audience.

It would be presumptuous to assert that this article is able to properly define theatre in all its depth and complexity. It would be more realistic to say this is merely an introduction. If the reader is frustrated at the lack of a clear answer, perhaps Brown, the author cited in this article, can provide at least some satisfaction in defining the five powers of theatre: it creates a social occasion in which poignant and significant issues are raised, it is a mirror of nature (not the ecological definition, but more in the sense of “reality”), the use of words, the fantastical worlds it creates on stage and finally, the live aspect of performance.

But perhaps speaking with the practitioners of theatre themselves can provide a more authentic “feel” in their answers compared to printed records. After all, there is a degree of spontaneity in theatre, which, maybe, deserves spontaneous answers from those who practice and experience it.

Sources:

The Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia

http://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=English%20language%20theatre%20in%20Quebec

L’Agence Goodwin

http://www.agencegoodwin.com/en/index.html

What is Theatre?: an Introduction and Exploration by John Russell Brown

This is my interview with Mike Hughes, the lead performer of a play called A Line in the Sand.

2-minute audio on theatre

Hughes is a workshop leader at Concordia’s theatre program, teaching an introductory course of acting to 70-80 acting students each semester.

Here is the script of my interview with him about his performance, the play itself and his thoughts on theatre. My specific theme, which is the overarching link to my entire project is: what is theatre to its practitioners?

Opening – Ambient sound

V/O: Theatre can be mysterious, beckoning to you without showing you what you will see. It leaves the audience in suspense until each and every scene is unveiled to you.

Sound clip of the play: Mike Hughes’s dialogue as “Mercer,” a Canadian soldier, on the death of a Palestinian teenager in the play.

V/O: I went and saw a play called A Line in the Sand, a story about a soldier inspired by the events of Somalia in 1993 when members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment were held responsible for the torture and killing of a Somalian teenager. This story was adapted to take place in the desert, and focuses on a friendship between a Canadian soldier fighting in the Persian Gulf War and a Palestinian teenager.

Sound clip of the play: Glenda Bagranza’s dialogue as “Sadiq,” speaking to Mercer beyond the grave.

V/O: In an interview after the play, I asked Mike Hughes, who played the role of the soldier, a simple question which, to him, doesn’t lead to an easy answer: what is theatre?

Mike Hughes’s response.

V/O: As the Pecha Kucha project is really about art and culture in the city, I wanted to concretize the connection between theatre and art. I asked Hughes: how is theatre an art?

Mike Hughes’s response.

I read a very interesting piece on The Guardian about a new innovative MA program in Britain’s Goldsmiths, University of London, where a group of 18 post-graduates are starting their own online magazine. They do everything from reporting, production of multimedia packages, etc. and most interestingly, their own marketing of their online product to local businesses for advertising revenues.

The main issue is this: should journalists be mixing their work with business acumen and revenue-seeking? With the deepening decline of traditional print media, it’s no longer an issue of whether this approach should be undertaken but how.

The justification for this new approach by these students, as pointed out by the article, comes from the state of the industry which in Britain is seen as dismal at best for young graduates. The job market is shrinking and the traditional business model of publications is ever more being questioned. So, these MAs are taking matters into their own hands by having a crack at drawing up a publication, an audience and a sustainable business model entirely from scratch. Times are hard enough that new ideas and measures should be tested. The decline of almost every print media organization in the last few years is indicative of how the craft of journalism is extremely vulnerable to changing economic climates – that hard-charging news hound can no longer do his/her work in relative isolation and must constantly be wary of economic concerns regarding the survival of his/her job, if not the entire publication.

Moreover, where did the stigma come from on the subject of mixing business with journalism? It comes from the longstanding battle between the publisher and the editor. Traditionally, journalists and marketers are a world apart in the nature of their respective jobs but their efforts ensure the survival of each other. You cannot have a sustainable operation without revenues from advertising, and you cannot have advertising when there is no vehicle – journalistic content – to carry ads to potential audiences. However, conflicts develop between these two very different streams of operations where one may see journalistic content come at the expense of profits and vice versa.

So is it so bad that journalists are taking control of both ends of the spectrum? Only journalists understand their content and indeed their product, if you will. What better people to make the case for their newspaper to local businesses than by those who create it? Sure, they may lack the business know-how of say, a marketing student, but media operations such as this online magazine is exactly where new generations of journalists can develop these skills. Most importantly, by having journalists “taking care of business,” this ensures that the publication’s journalistic endeavours take precedence over revenues and profits when push comes to shove – unless you want to be Fox News.

Paper that triggers interactivity on your computer screen? Real time graphics on your smartphone during a game? Getting recommendations for restaurants depending on where you’re facing on the street? It’s hard to wrap my mind around all these innovations called “augmented reality” (AR) where smart phones and computers provide a degree of interaction between the physical and digital worlds. Karthika Muthukumaraswamy’s blog post “Augmenting reality through journalism” covers the various innovations in progress, and how they offer possibilities to journalism.

Take for example Yelp, an iPhone app that calls up information on reviewed establishments such as restaurants depending on your current location detected by the GPS and what you’re pointing at with your iPhone. This concept offers the basis to “embed” any type of information onto places in the physical world, detectable by a smart phone’s GPS system.

This is where news organizations come in.

If breaking news in the city can be mapped as soon as it’s published online, this information can be updated to people’s phones as well. For example, it could alert people of an ongoing emergency nearby which could save lives. Think of the Virginia Tech and Dawson College shootings where people did not know where the threat was, and all the cellphone connections were jammed.

The police rely on media outlets for important public alerts, and Yelp can make this far more effective. I’m not sure if Quebec has the “Amber Alert,” but there is a police warning system in Ontario and British Columbia for citizens to keep their eyes peeled for a recent child abduction. Police alerts could get out to people within minutes – the minutes that are crucial to stopping a crime – in the area where the suspect was last seen by “flagging” the area for the Yelp-equipped phones to pick up.

Traffic reporters can give commuters to-the-minute information that is specific to the kilometer, not just big sections of roads and highways. City news can be delivered in a fashion that is much more interesting and relevant to the audience as they go about their lives – people can interact with their physical environment by searching through interesting facts that are updated real-time. Imagine walking through a neighborhood, and finding out that it is undergoing gentrification, or walking into a building and browsing through interesting facts about its history.

Yelp on an iPhone.

Information overload? This could be the worse example to the nth degree. But this can be solved with the use of filters. People can flick on and off, pick and choose what categories of information they would like to see at any given time or location. If you look at the screen in the above picture, Yelp has already created categories of information for people to choose from.

If I may use a worn-out expression, knowledge is power. If this form of AR is made universal, it will offer unprecedented access to information for the masses in real-time, relevant to people’s specific location, activities and interests. It is up to news organizations to stake a claim in this AR medium and establish a demand for this product early on – before the tech giants do so and once again determine the rules of the game like they did with online news (read: Google News and the Apple iPad).

If something like Yelp succeeds in gaining widespread support in infrastructure and content suppliers, it could change everything. Journalism can be part of that change.

Twitter has been a blessing for some, and a curse for others. It could act as a police scanner in the newsroom, or a scanner for pretty much anything whether it be a fire, crime, celebration, natural disaster or any extraordinary event in a wide range of magnitude. It is also the ultimate scoop machine, beating traditional media by hours in terms of delivering on-the-spot quasi-reporting without the need to go through any editing or publishing systems. The breathtaking expansion of the online world in everyone’s lives in the last ten years has changed consumer behaviour vis-a-vis the media, and Twitter epitomizes this new pace in its most intense form.

In this op-ed of the New York Times, the writer took issue with a political columnist of the New Yorker for dismissing Twitter without having tried to use it. But the rebuttal is barely scratching at the surface of what matters to me a lot right now: how to work as a journalist against the ultimate scoop machine.

Nick Bilton of the Times paints a world that is reminiscent of 50-years-ahead predictions on the effects of technology on society by Popular Mechanics, citing food trucks alert potential patrons of food specials before they come around, an astronaut talking to inquisitive strangers on earth while floating miles above on the International Space Station and Barrack Obama sending out inspirational messages to his fans – all in 140 characters or less. A journalism professor once said in his class that journalists provide the connection between different parts of society – parts that are divided by social, economic and cultural lines – by offering information about everyone and everything. What happens to the journalist when technology has facilitated communications to a degree that everyone in all parts of society can connect with each other on their own?

Things are changing, but for the better.

Adrienne Arsenault tells journalism students to concentrate on one of the fundamentals of journalism in the face of electronic media: the depth and narrative of a story.

Journalism can still deliver what Twitter cannot. It’s a craft with various aspects which students train themselves on and rehearse every day at Concordia’s journalism department: well-rounded knowledge of the world, good interviewing skills and excellent writing. I will focus on the latter because I was deeply inspired by a speech given to hundreds of journalism students at a recent conference I attended. Adrienne Arsenault of the CBC, foreign correspondent of the National, was asked at the end of her keynote speech: what is Twitter’s impact on journalism? She said Twitter is now the premiere source for news if you want to learn the bare bone facts. Journalists cannot compete against the population in reporting first-hand information at the scene. So how do we offer more to the audience? Her solution was simple, but rich in journalism lore: it is the power of our keen sense of good narrative that will grip our audience. Journalists will never be able to beat Twitter at getting the news out first, but we can offer depth, insight and most importantly, compelling stories. She described some of her experiences in war zones, places beset by natural disasters and events which expose stirring human interest. Describing the sensation of bombs going off in Israel and/Palestine, removing caked blood from the bottom of her shoes, witnessing the reunion of long-lost family members (just a few of the many anecdote she shared in her talk) – these stories could not be told in 140 characters or less.

I was again reminded me this week the vulnerability of the media when technology is changing. I read an op-ed on the Globe and Mail about the unveiling of the iPad and what that means to the media, and the verdict is that this new tablet will be a mixed blessing.

Though it is likely Apple’s new product will be able to unlock new streams of revenue which previously did not exist for newspapers and other media organizations, the writer concluded that it this also means Apple will get a slice of the pie – potentially a big slice.

“It’s Apple that owns the printing press now,” wrote Derek DeCloet.

Steve Jobs unveiling the new iPad.

He arrived to this conclusion by drawing a parallel to iTunes’ online store, which has been the only viable way to make money from the wildfire-like proliferation of free downloadable music on the internet. However, this also meant Apple gets a cut of the profits from record labels and artists because it basically acts as an online distributor. Similarly, media organizations must rely on Apple’ and the iPad to reach their audiences in this new medium of portable media.

Of course, the technology of the tablet creates a lot of new possibilities for media organizations to package their content in innovative ways. Perhaps an interactive experience to read the newspaper with your fingers? Maybe this is will add more impetus for newspapers to finally think about multimedia reporting on a consistent basis, because resisting against the new media movement would spell inevitable doom for them when consumer expectations are already so far ahead.

But there’s another factor tied to the iPad which robs media organizations of even more control – the software.

This is actually a personal anecdote of mine, because I’ve enrolled myself in a course to learn Adobe Flash to diversify my skills as a newspaper designer. Three weeks into my class – and

struggling to keep up every week – I’ve been told by my professor that Flash is actually on its way out!

It’s because of Apple.

According to my prof, there’s been a row between Apple and Adobe, the latter having bought out Macromedia (the creator of Flash) a few years ago. I am not aware of the details, but in short, it sounds like the conflict is political. This explains the lack of Flash capabilities on the iPad – a shocking fact considering Flash is found everywhere on the internet.

I feel like I’ve hopped on the wrong train, while I’m already late in getting where I need to go. I wonder if journalists or newspaper people like myself would just have to learn something entirely different again in a few years. It sounds like it could be HTML 5, a new code developed by Google that is supposedly much more advanced and has much more capability.

The dizzying pace of progress continues.