…ok so it was actaully quite interesting and illustrated a good point. In today’s study session we were learning about ‘Garbology’ or how some people can deduce quite alot of consumer information from the things one throws away. We inspected three mocked-up selections of discarded food and consumable packaging to profile the proposed user of those items. It’s amazing how much information you can actually deduce. We also touched upon the practice of Ethnography by observing people and the ethics behind it.

Today I also attented a talk by Chris Cramer (Former President and MD of CNN) at the DICe Building. The lecture was called “Trust and Integrity in the Modern Media – Has The Media Lost Its Message?”.
Very interesting and synonymous with the subjects dealt with in the popular book ‘We The Media’ which I read during BSc Multimedia. He made some great points about User-generated content, citizen journalism and the future of print. There is a distinct lack of QUALITY in modern media by way of bad and lazy journalism, something which in future can be capitalised on and monetised as a USP as the print publications we see today increasingly move exclusively online.
He failed, though, to touch upon the very reason people subcribe to tabloids and other poor quality news sources and accept it as fact so frequently, despite his assertion that the vast majority of people (certinaly thiose in the room) apparently don’t trust the news media in it’s various forms. Further, he was talking about a core value of good journalism should be one of inpartiality with ‘axe to grind’ but this is clearly something which every media institution is guilty of! Many are owned by the same parent company and so obviously have some kind of influence down to the individual journalists – no media is truely ‘impartial’.

Thanks Mr Cramer – very enjoyable.