Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

Universities and news media face the same challenges from digital media, and if the news media house is on fire - to use the analogy Jeff Jarvis uses in this detailed post - then universities occupy the house next door, to which the flames have spread. I don't agree with everything in this post, but Jarvis nicely identifies three key strategies both need to undertake in order to survive (quoted):

  • find communities that are self-defined and somehow underserved and learn how to serve them better
  • interests must be defined not in our terms — the content we happen to have, the way we assign and organize our newsroom — but instead in the terms of the interested.
  • we need to start with people's needs and serve them in the context of their use, 

I'm less sanguine about the commercial model Jarvis proposes, but this is key: "The success of commerce in media depends on trust and credibility with your users... the best way is by making an open transaction and compact with users, delivering obvious value in return for data."

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2024 10:28 a.m.

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