Nieman Reports

Summer 2010

The Digital Landscape: What's Next for News?

Explore the emerging realms of digital territory where news and information reside—or will soon. It’s a place where game playing thrives and augmented reality tugs at possibilities. It’s where video excels, while the appetite for long-form text and the experience of “deep reading” is diminished, and it’s where the allure of multitasking greets the crush of information. Learn how young people negotiate their journey, and travel inside the brain to discover its capacities in the digital realm. Dig deeper into topics covered in the magazine by clicking on the books in our digital library to reveal selected videos, articles, blogs and Web sites.

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The Digital landscape: What's Next for News?

Summer 2010: Introduction

By Melissa Ludtke• Technology• June 14, 2010

Brain Power

Feeling the Heat: The Brain Holds Clues for Journalism

By Jack Fuller• Features• June 29, 2010

‘This rise in emotional intensity poses a real problem for serious journalists … . The sciences of the mind offer a lot of help if we are willing to learn from them.’ Read more

Our ‘Deep Reading’ Brain: Its Digital Evolution Poses Questions

By Maryanne Wolf• Features• June 29, 2010

‘The reading circuit’s very plasticity is also its Achilles’ heel. It can be fully fashioned over time and fully implemented when we read, or it can be short-circuited …’ Read more

Novelty and Testing: When the Brain Learns and Why It Forgets

By Russell Poldrack• Features• June 29, 2010

The orange and yellow regions in the brain’s right hemisphere were more active for a group of individuals when they stopped themselves from making a movement. Image by Eliza Congdon. Russell … Read more

Thinking About Multitasking: It’s What Journalists Need to Do

By Clifford Nass• Features• June 29, 2010

Heavy media multitaskers ‘are often influenced by intervening content. News articles are therefore going to require more recapitulations and reminders to help readers pick up where they left off.’ Read more

Watching the Human Brain Process Information

By Marcel Just and Melissa Ludtke• Features• June 29, 2010

‘We measure the amount of brain activity while somebody’s doing something. You can’t generate more activity beyond a certain point. There’s an upper limit.’ Read more

A Big Question: ‘How Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?’

By John Brockman• Features• June 14, 2010

Edge posed this question; discover how a wide range of thinkers responded. Read more

Origins of Edge

Features• June 14, 2010

RELATED ARTICLE “A Big Question: ‘How Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?’” – John BrockmanThe Edge project was inspired by … Read more

Digital Youth

Critical Thinking About Journalism: A High School Student’s View

By Lucy Chen• Technology• June 29, 2010

< Lucy Chen created a quiz to test critical thinking skills learned in the News Literacy Project. Click to enlarge » RELATED ARTICLE … Read more

Lessons for the Future From the First Post-Pokémon Generation

By Mizuko Ito• Technology• June 29, 2010

‘Creating interest-driven content and programming that is easily shared, interactive and participatory is key to unlocking the power of networked media.’ Read more

Digital Demands: The Challenges of Constant Connectivity

By Sherry Turkle• Technology• June 29, 2010

MIT professor Sherry Turkle finds the prevalence of PowerPoint in grade school classrooms “distressing,” yet PowerPoint is ubiquitous. It has gained adherents in the federal Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who … Read more

Generational Divide: Digital Technology’s Paradoxical Message

By Sherry Turkle• Technology• June 29, 2010

In an interview Sherry Turkle did with Aleks Krotoski for a BBC project, “The Virtual Revolution,” she spoke about how young people think about privacy and how their experiences with digital technology shape their connections and exchanges with others. Read more

Understanding the iGeneration—Before the Next Mini-Generation Arrives

By Larry Rosen• Technology• June 29, 2010

‘As the pace of technological change accelerates, mini-generations are defined by their distinctive patterns of media use, levels of multitasking, and preferred methods of communication.’ Read more

Revealing the Digital News Experience—For Young And Old

By Amy Mitchell• Technology• June 29, 2010

In surveys and analysis, the Pew Research Center illuminates the ever-changing course of Americans’ digital habits. Read more

Journalism: English for the 21st Century

By Esther Wojcicki• Technology• June 29, 2010

‘The two main drives in teenagers’ lives are for independence and acceptance; our approach to journalism supports these drives through favoring freedom of expression and showcasing student work on a variety of public platforms.’ Read more

E-Textbooks to iPads: Do Teenagers Use Them?

By Esther Wojcicki• Technology• June 29, 2010

‘... I didn’t anticipate the heated debates we would have about the impact of these emerging digital platforms or the intensity of our discussions about the future of e-textbooks, journalism, and reading in general.’ Read more

The Future of News: What Ninth-Grade Students Think

Technology• June 30, 2010

RELATED ARTICLES “Journalism: English for the 21st Century” – Esther Wojcicki “E-Textbooks to iPads: Do Teenagers Use Them?” – Esther … Read more

News Literacy Project: Students Figure Out What News and Information to Trust

By Alan C. Miller• Technology• June 29, 2010

‘Without a demand for quality journalism (on any platform) from the next generation, what future will it have?’ Read more

New News

News in the Age of Now

By Nicholas Carr• Technology• June 29, 2010

‘On the Web, skimming is no longer a means to an end but an end in itself. That poses a huge problem for those who report and publish the news.’ Read more

There’s More to Being a Journalist Than Hitting the ‘Publish’ Button

By Douglas Rushkoff• Opinion• June 15, 2010

For better or worse, the Internet is ‘biased to the amateur and to the immediate.’ Read more

Categorizing What Works—So We Can Apply Those Lessons to Future Endeavors

By Michele McLellan• Journalist’s Trade• June 14, 2010

As journalism heads into digital territory, an exploration of online news sites reveals 100 that offer promising pathways. Read more

Establishing a Digital Value for Watchdog Reporting

By Stephen Janis• Technology• June 14, 2010

‘Our impulse as digital journalists is to innovate—and this means finding stories that aren’t being covered by other news media in Baltimore and doing what we can to illuminate them in ways that propel people to act.’ Read more

A Message for Journalists: It’s Time to Flex Old Muscles in New Ways

By Ken Doctor• Opinion• June 14, 2010

‘We’ll learn by trying new ways of doing what we’ve done with news, by putting ourselves visibly in the social media mix, and by using the emerging tools of daily communication in all aspects of our work.’ Read more

Twitter: Can It Be a Reliable Source of News?

By Janic Tremblay• Technology• June 14, 2010

‘I came to understand that there is a science to this quest for creating the right network. It’s an empirical process, one that requires lots of time and thought and effort.’ Read more

YouTube’s Ecosystem for News

By Steve Grove• Technology• June 14, 2010

‘Our users innovate at an extraordinary pace and in ways that amaze us, make our world more transparent, and change the way we consume information and are informed.’ Read more

Video Games: What They Can Teach Us About Audience Engagement

By James Paul Gee• Technology• June 29, 2010

‘… we learn differently from content-driven media than we do from media driven by choice and problem solving.’ Read more

News-Focused Game Playing: Is It a Good Way to Engage People in an Issue?

By Kathleen A. Hansen and Nora Paul• Technology• June 29, 2010

‘Ultimately our challenge will be to determine which metrics for successful storytelling turn out to be most important in the digital environment.’ Read more

Playing the News Moves Into the Classroom

By Kathleen A. Hansen and Nora Paul• Technology• June 14, 2010

RELATED ARTICLE “News-Focused Game Playing: Is It a Good Way to Engage People in an Issue?” – Nora Paul and Kathleen A. Read more

Hacks + Hackers

Hacks/Hackers: Bringing Journalists and Technologists Together

By Burt Herman• Technology• June 15, 2010

‘We’re all trying to figure out what works, and that’s really the key to innovation: a tolerance for failure and embrace of experimentation.’ Read more

Joining Digital Forces Strengthens Local Investigative Reporting

By Brant Houston• Technology• June 14, 2010

‘Our goal is to build online tools that the people can easily use to enhance their ability as watchdogs—whether they are citizens or journalists.’ Read more

The Peril and Promise of the Semantic Web

By Andrew Finlayson• Technology• June 29, 2010

What is the role of the journalist as computers become more adept at pulling together data from different sources? Read more

For a Start-up, Machine-Generated Stories Are the Name of the Game

By Jan Gardner• Technology• June 14, 2010

For a partner in a start-up specializing in stories written by machines, the only downside to attracting coverage in Bloomberg Businessweek was the headline: “Are Sportswriters Really Necessary?” “We want to augment what is out there rather than to … Read more

Curator's Corner

Fairness as an Essential Ingredient in News Reporting

By Bob Giles

Nieman Notes

Nieman Reports issue archive

Nieman Reports

Summer 2010

The Digital Landscape: What's Next for News?

The Digital landscape: What's Next for News?

Brain Power

Digital Youth

New News

Hacks + Hackers

Curator's Corner

By Bob Giles

Nieman Notes

By Paige Williams

By Jan Gardner

By Derrick Z. Jackson

Masthead