Disrupting the News
SINY 130 - Disrupting the News
Technology has transformed the way news is produced, delivered and consumed around the world. From disruption in business models to changes in readership and access, digital platforms make journalismmore vibrant -- and more fragile. It is rare to find an industry that has been able to rapidly expand its market and develop dynamic new ways to interact with consumers while at the same time find it self facing an existential crisis. This dissonance is what makes the nexus of the news media and technology so fascinating. Our course will examine those changes, starting with a brief introduction to the historic impact of other technologies (such as the telegraph and television) on the news business and then focusing closely on the different phases of the Internet, particularly the Web 2.0 technologies and the coming AI-driven future.
We expect to examine how technology has affected: 1) Worldwide access to journalism, wherever it is reported or published. This includes changes in revenues and costs and in how journalists perform their roles; 2) The 24 hour news cycle, the faster response to news by journalists and their consumers, with implications for the ethics and accuracy of those stories; 3) Journalists’ understanding of reader behavior, with more immediate and detailed results; 4) New platforms, particularly in social media, that shift the balance of power in news and threaten to disintermediate traditional players; 5) The future, as Artificial Intelligence applications start to reshape every workplace, and all fields of production, how will this fit with journalism?
This course fulfills the Social Inquiry (SI) WAYS requirement.
Meet the Instructor(s)
Emily Bell
Emily Bell is founding director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism and a leading thinker, commentator and strategist on digital journalism.
Established in 2010, the Tow Center has rapidly built an international reputation for research into the intersection of technology and journalism. The majority of Bell’s career was spent at Guardian News and Media in London working as an award-winning writer and editor both in print and online. As editor-in-chief across Guardian websites and director of digital content for Guardian News and Media, Bell led the web team in pioneering live blogging, multimedia formats, data and social media, making the Guardian a recognized pioneer in the field.
She is co-author of “Post Industrial Journalism: Adapting to the Present” (2012) with CW Anderson and Clay Shirky. Bell is a trustee on the board of the Scott Trust, the owners of The Guardian, a member of Columbia Journalism Review’s board of overseers, an adviser to Tamedia Group in Switzerland, has served as chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Advisory Council on social media, and has served as a member of Poynter’s National Advisory Board.
She delivered the Reuters Memorial Lecture in 2014, the Hugh Cudlipp Lecture in 2015, and was the 2016 Humanitas Visiting Professor in Media at the University of Cambridge.
She lives in New York City with her husband and children.
Matthew Boggie
Lecturer, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education
Matt Boggie is a leading thinker and practitioner in the application of new technologies to media. He has most recently worked as the Chief Technology Officer and part of the founding team for Axios, the news and information start-up. Prior to that he was the Director of the New York Times’ Research and Development Lab, where he had extensive experience in researching and implementing new technologies. Matt has fifteen years' intense experience on the Media and Entertainment industry, solving problems of content management, distribution, and market positioning.