The second, and final day, of the ICE07 conference saw some greatly involving presentations with audience members deeply interested in panel discussions. The morning kicked off with a panel discussion on citizen journalism – and challenged the conventional understanding of the term.
Panelists voiced the idea that citizen journalists are merely citizen observers. Equating the idea of citizen journalism to citizen dentistry – a common thread amongst the big-media represented panel was that journalism can only be done by journalists (with degrees), rather than Joe-Canada. What was evident with the panel, however, was that published comments were able to change the mindset of readers based on postings on online news outlets (like the Globe and Mail).
Moving to the Sky Room for a panel titled Social Networks Go Mobile, Sean Kane likened the movement of content to mobile as creating “a lot of different content for a lot of different people.” This long-tail model was buttressed with Nick Patsiopoulos’ futurist outlook of networks – arguing that we will be moving towards a stage where large interactive displays will allow us to share our digital media and socially interact.
Perhaps the best panel of the entire event was the afternoon session titled Just A Pipe Dream? The Evolving Internet. The passionate panel was filled with mostly corporate VP’s, with apparent underdog Jason Roks passionately arguing his case for an open internet. In a discussion that should have been titled “Net Neutrality”, the panel dealt with copyright theft, and how big media is hoping to prevent it. On this topic Jason argued that “the creative people are not complaining about their art being stolen [he had been arguing that creators create altruistically], but it is the content providers that are the ones complaining.” With an audience applause, Jason responded to Mary-Ellen Anderson’s comment on users having nothing to gain that “you [media companies] see it as people with nothing to lose, I see it as people with nothing to gain.”
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