Corey Arcangel is perhaps the internet's most infamous hack, masher-upper, digi/net artist. His work stands for a growing culture of artists who run wildly through animated GIF landscapes populated with corrupted data-compressed bunny rabbits and tinny, MIDI renditions of Savage Garden ballads. As the Lisson Gallery, London, opens its archives to Arcangel's curatorial eye, could digi/net art be set to infect the real, fleshy world, like a rampant Conficker Worm? Has YouTube become the truest reflection of our anthropological selves? Are we destined to roam the int3erw£bs like the mythic beasts of yore, hoping, in time, that digi art can free us from the confines of this fleshy void? [...previously]
posted by 0bvious on Dec 8, 2009 - 20 comments

Crap Detection 101 Howard Rheingold offers a fairly in-depth primer on media and internet BS detection. Lots of links to resources for enabling critical analysis of various information sources included.
posted by telstar on Jun 30, 2009 - 17 comments

My, how the tables have turned: Many of the same daily newspaper correspondents that not too long ago turned up their noses at us online journalism pioneers, claiming we weren't "real" journalists, now fill my email box daily with their resumes, looking to me and others like me to provide them with work. ... Memo to my remaining daily print colleagues and their nostalgia club: Get over it and get over yourselves. It’s not that the Internet is Mr. Wonderful. Much of it mimics the same bad qualities that drove the public away from daily newspapers. You lost the public to us because - there's no nice or sugar-coated way to say it - you guys really suck at what you do. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on May 12, 2009 - 95 comments

Politics, the Press, and the Public. Bill Moyers speaks with Glenn Greenwald and Jay Rosen about the role of the establishment press in America’s dysfunctional political system.
posted by homunculus on Feb 7, 2009 - 18 comments

NPR's On The Media presents a short set of pieces about comments on news websites and the challenges of "digital democracy," with discussion from Ira Glass about responses to a show about teenage runaways, and New Republic editor and critic Lee Siegel, who posted anonymously to respond insultingly to comments on his own blog. And a Roanoke newspaper editor discusses how one paper sees the integration of comments into online news sites and whether it's a valuable reader service. [more inside]
posted by Miko on Jul 27, 2008 - 67 comments

"When copies are free, you need to sell things which cannot be copied." Kevin Kelly (previously) describes eight "generative" values that increase in value as the price tag on making copies goes down. He also has some advice for creators who want to make money off the long tail. Via
posted by ErWenn on Mar 5, 2008 - 20 comments

I was going to share the many amazing videos that StSanders has uploaded to youtube featuring guitar gods like Van Halen and Santana shredding, since they have inexplicably only received scant mention on mefi so far. But StSanders' account has been suspended all all videos have been removed! [more inside]
posted by billtron on Feb 5, 2008 - 38 comments

They claimed they would destroy all television with their business. $100 million and one cast member of First Kid later, all they had were massive amounts of failure, tremendous parties with Bryan Singer, and many, many, many allegations of sexual molestation. Now they hide in the Spanish Riviera and hire Chinese sweatshop workers to mine for World of Warcraft items. Check as well the original 2000 LA Times expose on the company, to say nothing of the "gay pedophile version of Silver Spoons" which remains their finest artistic achievement. via boingboing [more inside]
posted by Sticherbeast on Nov 16, 2007 - 49 comments

People of the Web --very well done short video profiles of interesting people online. Mike Rogers of blogactive is on the front page now. Links to previous profiles are on the right, including Kirk Cameron, Caleb Shikles, Sherman Austin, and Josh Wolf.
posted by amberglow on Jun 1, 2007 - 3 comments

Internet radio is (effectively) dead.
posted by four panels on Apr 16, 2007 - 127 comments

News Sniffer. It's a site dedicated to monitoring news articles and discussion threads at the BBC. For censored comments from BBC news threads: Watch Your Mouth. And now it has implementation that tracks changes in news articles, to see how things are edited: Revisionista. Here's a couple of examples.
posted by gsb on Sep 11, 2006 - 5 comments

Amateur Hour. Internet journalism and the traditional media. Nicolas Lehmann in the New Yorker.
posted by semmi on Aug 6, 2006 - 12 comments

WSJ: Moguls of New Media Have nearly a million friends on MySpace and you get $5000 endorsements. Make a comedy podcast with cocktail recipes and you get endorsed by Steve Jobs and get interest from advertisers. Post seemingly impossible self-potraits on Flickr and you get hired by Toyota. The Wall Street Journal looks at these and many more "whos' who of new media". from BlogHer
posted by divabat on Aug 1, 2006 - 22 comments

Shock and gore. The people behind "the world's goriest website", why they do it, and what it says about us.
posted by ascullion on Jan 14, 2006 - 48 comments

Narrow Casting: This article describes the trend of narrowcasting, a media consumption pattern in which users increasingly turn to specialized, often web-produced media content and away from professionally mass-marketed content shown on TV and sold in record and video stores. [Via Aldaily.com]
posted by gregb1007 on Dec 22, 2005 - 12 comments

Osama bin Laden, littérateur and new-media star. A thought-provoking analysis of bin Laden's adept use of Koranic language and the Internet by Bruce B. Lawrence, an Islamic scholar at Duke who edited a new anthology of bin Laden's public statements called Messages to the World. The Western media -- says the millionaire mass-murderer formerly trained as a useful ally by the CIA via Pakistan's ISI -- "implants fear and helplessness in the psyche of the people of Europe and the United States. It means that what the enemies of the United States cannot do, its media are doing!" Know thy enemy. [via Arts and Letters Daily.]
posted by digaman on Nov 3, 2005 - 57 comments

Steven Levy and Mark Pesce on the future of television. Oh and Conan O'brien! :D [via]
posted by kliuless on May 23, 2005 - 6 comments

The future of Google, Apple, and Microsoft.
posted by Tlogmer on May 13, 2005 - 40 comments

Reflections On Our Media of Communication. Traditional news media vs. the internet. Are people really abandoning TV, paper, and radio news? Does the 'net really offer the best in free-press? The ever lovable Fred thinks so, and he's not afraid to tell you why.
posted by eas98 on Apr 22, 2004 - 14 comments

Good weekend project: start your own Internet radio station with peerCast. Mentioned here, very cool.
posted by tranquileye on Feb 6, 2004 - 4 comments

Here's A Really Neat "Ask Slashdot" feature on how much we rely on the good 'ol Net for our daily dose of news and knowledge.
I've gradually abandoned almost all other sources of news, to the point where TV, magazines and news papers have pretty much disappeared from my life, but unlike the Slashdot guy, I still get a fair amount of "Information" from books.
He's got a good question, and there are some really Good Answers at Slashdot, but I'm curious about the mefites... "Is the Internet Your Source of Knowledge?" From his post:"...but if I'm trying to look up something and can't find it online in a couple minutes I generally just blow it off, as if there's no other place to look. This realization seems sort of stunning. I'm very curious if other Slashdot readers have become dependent on the Internet to that level, and what their thoughts are on the subject." "
According to a study Teens and young adults spend more time online than watching TV, and looking at Other Studies, they all seem to point the same way.
Is print dead?
posted by Blake on Oct 1, 2003 - 15 comments

Future of the Net: "Information wants to be free" vs. "truth costs extra" "...a coalition that included Amazon.com, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Disney and others....spoke of "tiered" service, where consumers would be charged according to "gold, silver and bronze" levels of bandwidth use. The days where lawmakers once spoke about eradicating the "Digital Divide" in America has come full circle. Under the scenario presented by the lobbyists, people on fixed incomes would have to accept a stripped-down Internet, full of personally targeted advertising. Other users could get a price break if they receive bundled content -- news, music, games -- from one telecom or media company. Anybody interested in other "non-mainstream" news, software or higher-volume usage, could pay for the privilege. The panel's response was warm, suggesting that the industry should work this out with little federal intrusion. That approach has already been embraced by the industry-friendly Federal Communications Commission." For more, see The Center For Digital Democracy
posted by troutfishing on Aug 5, 2003 - 38 comments

The Digital Journalist: Features. The Digital Journalist: Features. Photojournalism features on a spread of human life, from Afghan child labour, the Dalai Lama and the Soviet Union to Marilyn Monroe, jazz and Smalltown USA. (Warning - adverts).
posted by plep on Jun 1, 2003 - 3 comments

The War is about to Start and for those of us without a TV we are part of a grand experiment to see if we can be as well informed. According to this Reuters article, Radio had World War II, Television had Vietnam, Cable TV had the Gulf War and now, the Internet may have the U.S. war with Iraq...reporters and producers with wireless laptops and handheld digital cameras will file reports from battlefields and military installations. Cameras are at key locations for live feeds 24 hours a day. Interactive, 3-D maps will update troop movements, casualties and weapons used. ''You're combining the speed of television with the depth of print,'' says Mitch Gelman, executive producer of CNN.com. ''This could define how future wars are covered.'' (more inside)
posted by stbalbach on Mar 19, 2003 - 19 comments

With his own blog in place Tristan makes interesting observations on today's blogs. He's definitely got a point when it comes to the variety of information on most blogs... sometimes it seems I can visit 20 blogs and see the exact same source articles over and over again. An interesting read from tnl.net, as always.
posted by clevershark on Feb 26, 2003 - 18 comments

The Human Nature Daily Review, SciTech Daily Review, Arts & Letters Daily, Business Daily Review. The busier I get the more I value these sites that separate news signal from noise and present the results in a simple and almost standardized fashion. Are there other great newsfilters out there?
posted by srboisvert on Feb 24, 2003 - 11 comments

Want to listen to the World Series on the Web? Pay $9.95. I know, it's a sports post, so (most) everyone will hate it, but I see a disturbing trend of no more free media lunches on the Web. CNN went subscription months ago, and most other places I've gone for free video/audio are drying up. All I wanted was to listen to the game. But I can't find it anywhere. All the regular stations I listen to that carry the game are silent. And how will the Angels make a valiant comeback if I can't cheer them on? (sigh)
posted by TheManWhoKnowsMostThings on Oct 26, 2002 - 25 comments

WebLogs bring less traffic than major media sites. There isn't any surprize there, but what kind of traffic does each bring?

...those Google/Scientology articles I wrote didn't get nearly as many links from blogs... but they were of much broader interest to readers than the blog articles, so when a few major media sites linked to them, they got a ton of traffic.

Major media sites have to appeal to a common denominator, while smaller sites (MeFi) can focus on quality and thought provoking content. Is there any wonder there's less people interested in the specifics?
posted by KnitWit on Apr 5, 2002 - 12 comments

Drudge clone Mens News Daily, has vowed to challenge the drudgereport in this Washington Times article. Politics set aside, with hundreds of other second rate "drudge wannabe" breaking news sites like OnlineWorldNews , Aheadnews, ultra-news, etc etc. when does it stop? How much breaking news do we really need. The news can only break so many ways, no?
posted by rabbit on Feb 1, 2002 - 4 comments

What is the future of online news. Will subscription eventually win through? Is there a viable business model that will allow independent publishers (such as Salon) to survive, or will we see further media consolidation? Where does blogging fit into this spectrum?
posted by RobertLoch on Dec 19, 2001 - 9 comments

Good news is hard to find. There's the traditional elitists, the foreign sympathisers, the biased leftists and rightists, and the information-clogged portals that help organize them. Sometimes it seems like we'll have to settle for what makes us laugh. Where do you get your news?
posted by tweebiscuit on Jun 10, 2001 - 26 comments

Four sites account for half of Web surfing 'Even more significantly, the number of companies controlling 60 percent of all U.S. surfing time plummeted from 110 to 14, according to Jupiter Media Metrix, which released the survey Monday.'
posted by rebeccablood on Jun 5, 2001 - 21 comments

the news versus e-mail news Is this link, an article about spreading news via e-mail and the net, an example of my present posting?
posted by Postroad on Jan 29, 2001 - 2 comments

A new wrinkle in the tale of TV vs. Telephone. Cable TV over your phone lines? I doubt it will fly, but who knows?
posted by jpoulos on Jan 23, 2001 - 4 comments

Journaux munis d'un blog The Guardian has a Weblog, as does The Age in Oz. Any other coelecanth media taking the plunge?
posted by joeclark on Jun 1, 2000 - 0 comments

Remember the Wired Magazine cover with the giant hand, that was all about push? Re-read the old article, it sounded far-fetched then, but with daily headline emails from numerous internet news sites and information tracking services that can icq or page you with information, push isn't dead. We're actually using push content, we're just not calling it that. (thanks Michael for reminding me)
posted by mathowie on Jan 8, 2000 - 1 comment