Old Media versus New Media

The act of a citizen, or group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires.

Participatory journalism is a bottom-up, emergent phenomenon in which there is little or no editorial oversight or formal journalistic workflow dictating the decisions of a staff. Instead, it is the result of many simultaneous, distributed conversations that either blossom or quickly atrophy in the Web's social network.

We Media  

According to the authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto, the Web is not a natural vehicle for prepackaged entertainment. "Unlike the lockstep conformity imposed by television, advertising and corporate propaganda, the Net has given new legitimacy -- and freedom -- to play. Many of those drawn into this world find themselves exploring a freedom never before imagined: to indulge their curiosity, to debate, to disagree, to laugh at themselves, to compare visions, to learn, to create new art, new knowledge."

Online participation is simply fun -- whether a political riff by a deeply committed weblogger, a casual forum discussion, or a one-off album review posted on Amazon. As futurist Paul Saffo notes, "In the end, much of what passes for communications actually has a high entertainment component. The most powerful hybrid of communications and entertainment is 'particitainment' -- entertaining communications that connects us with some larger purpose or enterprise."

We Media