Larry D. Lauer

TCU honors students and I have wrapped-up our explorations of “How Media Revolutions Change Everything”  with a second week of site visits in London.  This week it was the BBC, the British Film Institute (BFI), and the CBS London Bureau.

The visit to the BBC produced a surprise adventure into the world of archives.  We were asked to consider the challenge faced by those charged with archiving a new media world where far more information is generated than can be captured and stored.  Current BBC thinking is that while the “story” or lesson of a great work scholarship, literature, or other media might be digitized for posterity, the details of all these great achievements cannot. This contradictory idea of a significant loss of history in a “big data” world was shocking.

At the BFI we explored how media revolutions, politics and declining resources can combine to change the culture, identity, and founding mission of a unique and historic institution. The BFI was originally charged with the preservation of a distinctly British film industry, but somehow also became a custodian of a national British identity. But recent budget cuts and political influence, as well as the new media revolution, have caused many insiders to fear it is losing its’ uniqueness, and thereby its’ national prominence. Again, we were surprised by discovering still another way media revolutions can change everything… including the stature of long established institutions.

The CBS London bureau functions as a hub from which foreign correspondents travel to cover the world. Digital technology and social media have change every aspect of news reporting, with smaller cameras, instant satellite transmission, GPS mapping, mobile phone connections, and even citizen-produced i-phone contributed photos. Here too, however, budget cuts have closed bureaus, eliminated staff, and reduced the number of events that can be reported. Reporters therefore tend to “herd” to the same stories. Our take-a-way was that while CBS correspondents are the best in the business, it’s also important for the consumer to know what stories go unreported. And what is even more compelling is the number of people who are now getting all their news from alternative, mostly unedited, and often inaccurate, new and social media sources.

The students and I have had an exciting adventure in media ideas over the last 10 weeks. We began by “Skype-ing”  in experts to our classroom on campus in Texas, and concluded by meeting face-to-face with experts in London. We ended where we began: Media revolutions indeed do change everything. And what’s more, even if we wanted to there is very little we can do about it!

The question today is: How has the new media revolution changed what you do?

This week I have been in London with my TCU honors college students, and a college administrator. We have visited the American Embassy, an organization that publishes a web-based newsletter about higher education in the Middle East, and the Executive Editor of the Economist.  In addition, I visited with a Pro-Vice-Master in the University of London system. The consistency of their responses has been a bit surprising.

All emphatically made the point that social media is here to stay. But they all also remain uncertain about longterm effects, and they all see new media usage patterns going through almost daily changes.

U.S. Embassy diplomats admitted they are not using social media yet to maximum capacity, and point out that their most effective work remains face-to-face dialogues in some of London’s most difficult and volatile neighborhoods. Social media they see as a tool to mobilize participation in events, but don’t yet see it as solving international relationship problems.

The Middle East higher education newsletter uses social media to drive people to its’ website, and sees Twitter as more effective for that purpose than Facebook. They emphasize that success is still all about content. Stories must be more concise these days, but it is content that determines readership. Significant numbers of Middle East populations are illiterate, and so while social media reaches the educated people, mass responses are still face-to-face generated in the streets. The people we talked with were very anxious to make the point that in Cairo, for example, life as a whole goes on rather normally, and thousands are enrolled in and still attend universities.

The Economist remains primarily a weekly print publication, but it also features a substantial website that carries fast breaking stories, an e-newsletter , several Apps, an audio version, and many associated live events and seminars. The executive editor confessed that it challenges them to determine how and when daily new media use changes require adjustments in what they are doing.  So far, however, they remain one of the most important news publications in the world.

The University of London Pro-Vice Master’s big concern is that in her world of professional university advancement she sees young people coming into the work so focused on tactics and social media that they are not paying enough attention to strategic thinking, planning, face-to-face events, and content. Social media have permanent roles to play, she agrees, but all of the other media tools are still in the mix, and actual onsite experiences are what truly define an institution.

This has truly been an enlightening experience. Next week it’s the BBC, the British Film Institute, and the CBS London Bureau.  Stay tuned, there will be more to come.