Vidar Falkenberg’s ambitious PhD project at Aarhus University is a study of the “History of online newspapers in Denmark”. Falkenberg, sensibly, has a project blog (in Danish). (Via eJour).

Philosopher Jürgen Habermas on the disruptive effects of the media and the internet on the role of the intellectual:

On the one hand, the communication shift from books and the printed press to the television and the Internet has brought about an unimagined broadening of the media sphere, and an unprecedented consolidation of communication networks. Intellectuals used to swim around in the public sphere like fish in water, but this environment has become ever more inclusive, while the exchange of ideas has become more intensive than ever. But on the other hand the intellectuals seem to be suffocating from the excess of this vitalising element, as if they were overdosing. The blessing seems to have become a curse. I see the reasons for that in the de-formalisation of the public sphere, and in the de-differentiation of the respective roles. (translation by sign and sight)

Noteworthy, not least since many invoke Habermas’ concept of the public sphere when discussing the impact of blogs and other forms of user-driven publishing.

The excerpt is from the acceptance speech for the Austrian Bruno-Kreisky-Preis. Habermas concludes that there’s really only one skill that still distinguishes the intellectual from other participants of the public sphere: An avantgarde sense of relevance (“den avantgardistischen Spürsinn für Relevanzen”). The intellectual must be able to discover new and troubling developments in society while the others still are busy with business as usual – and sound the alarm bell without overreacting. Complete text in German (pdf).

A classic intellectual skill that Habermas doesn’t highlight, is the ability to put issues in historical perspective, argue in a concise way and then draw conclusions of moral and logical clarity. Wouldn’t this be more realistic to expect of intellectuals in this fast-moving world? Brilliant example: Andre Glucksmann on caricatures and Auschwitz.

UPDATE: Liberale Stimme Online dissects bloggin’ Jürgen.

“Rather then being delivered as the only and true version of reality, news stories on the Internet have more of a provisory multi-meaning characteristic to them,” Michael Karlsson concludes in his doctoral dissertation at Lund University. “If this is practised in most online journalism, we may stand on a brink of a new kind of journalism and journalistic norms,” he goes on.

Karlsson studied four leading Swedish news sites in 2004-2005. What he found looks like a good snapshot of the state of online news in Scandinavia, though things might be changing now:

Interaction is widely present in the form of hyperlinks and e-mailing opportunities, but it does not take the form of public conversational interaction. There is not one single instance in the study where readers and publishers meet in a public dialogue about news content. This shows that it is still the producers that are heard in the news, although the technical means allow consumers to be heard.

What online news editors definitely should take note of, is Karlsson’s criticism of certain practices that might seem logical to journalists and editors, but can make the experience of using online news exasperating, confusing and almost surreal:

• The news is updated without readers being aware
• The author of the article changes
• Sources come and go
• The meaning of the news changes
• News stories disappear from the website
• Pictures and graphics are changed or removed
• Information that is promised is not delivered

An important point here must be to note that bloggers often are more reliable when it comes to linking to sources, telling readers why elements disappear (the practice of striking out errors instead of just removing them), etc. There’s an ideology of transparency and etiquette among bloggers that journalists might do well to copy.

Karlsson’s dissertation in full text (10,2 MB PDF!). There’s a longer English summary from page 213.

This project’s primary goal is to produce a research report with a mix of unique knowledge from the Norwegian context, supplemented with an overview over existing studies and debates in the field. The report will be finished before May 1, 2006, and will be submitted to the Norwegian Council for applied media research (which finances the study). Probably the material will be refined into an article in a peer-reviewed journal, and of course it will be presented in op-ed articles and other journalistic formats.

The report will be written in Norwegian, but a substantial summary in English will also be produced and posted here on the blog. The blog itself functions as a kind of notepad for the project, where ideas can be floated and lines of argumentation tested. I believe most of the issues and ideas referred to and commented on here will be relevant for the project in one way or another.

The project’s most important contribution to the lively international production of knowledge in the field will probably come from semi-structured qualitative interviews with Norwegian journalists/editors and bloggers. Hopefully the interviews will produce insights that can be of use in forthcoming research, by myself and/or others.

The project’s main research question: Digital communication technology is increasingly being used by the general public to produce and distribute news and commentary outside the editorial control of the established media. In what ways is the press institution challenged and affected by this development?

This question is divided into a series of subquestions, such as:

How do journalists and editors react to the challenge against the principle of editing? What alternative types of action is available to journalists and editors?

How do bloggers and journalists/editors judge the relationship between the two groups? Is it a cooperative relation, do they supplement each other, or are relations between and journalists/editors and bloggers marked by conflict?

A special subquestion concerns historical comparisons between today’s fragmented media landscape and the media situation in the early days of printed newspapers in Norway, from the end of the 18th century until well into the 19th.

Commentaries and suggestions are very welcome!

Jonathan Lundqvist is going to Iran to study “how the organization of the civil society is affected by the increased participation offered by the Internet and blogs.” Excellent topic, and his progress can be followed on his j|turn blog – which has a motto I already envy: “chasing the global public sphere” (via mymarkup.net).