Generation C – for “connected”?

“Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the alphabet…” was my first reaction to the news that Nielsen has decided to assign another letter to a cohort of younger-than-me people.

Some students might find “Generation C” too reminiscent of their grades. Thinking bigger, perhaps the current college-age-and-just-beyond generation doesn’t need yet another “generation” label.

Or maybe “N” for “Networked,” “L” for “Linked,” or “S” for “Socialnet” would spare them the “grade C” association.

In any case, I’m sure glad the Internet brought me this data for free. The Nielsen results are so not-surprising that they may represent another generation, “Generation D’oh,” consisting of marketing execs scrambling to label, quantify and sell to the demographic du jour.

Personally, I have that old, hippie-era “don’t label me” reaction, which I guess is now an “old hippie” reaction. Does that mean I’m part of “Generation H”? Sigh. “Generation,” “preparation,” what’s the difference…

Anyhow, I’m tempted to look into this “C” research, after my Twitter feed brought these two weighty reports within an hour of each other… The Harvard one — at first glance — looks more interesting; or maybe it’s just that I’m more interested in the conversations and creativity than the consumerism:

• Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality from a team at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society; a study online information users 18 and under (150 pages, 30 of them citations, 4 of them footnotes). Included: “content creation,
  levels of new literacies, general digital media usage, and social patterns.”
• State of the Media: Consumer Usage Report from Nielsen, the NielsenWire blog about it, (16 pages of colorful but exhausting charts and graphs highlighting facts like “Asians stream more videos on Hulu than on Netflix.”)
• For good measure, here’s  The Mashable Tech blog’s comments on that report.
• And, finally, a quote:

“Born sometime between the launch of the VCR and the commercialization of the Internet, Americans 18-34 are redefining media consumption with their unique embrace of all things digital. According to Nielsen and NM Incite’s U.S. Digital Consumer Report, this group—dubbed “Generation C” by Nielsen—is taking their personal connection—with each other and content—to new levels, new devices and new experiences like no other age group.”

How do they know? Among other things, NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey company tracked over 181 million blogs around the world by the end of 2011. Glad to know someone is reading this stuff. The report also mentions that Pinterest reached 4.5 million unique U.S. visitors during October 2011, which is around the time I first saw a student using it in class.

If midterm grades weren’t due next week, I might find time for a more in-depth reading of both of these reports. Maybe that’s what spring break is for? Maybe that’s what my retirement years will be for?

Full frontal nudity in a journalism faculty discussion

That’s what you might call a misleading sensational headline, but you are still reading.

The topic is a serious one: A North Carolina university’s dismissal of its student newspaper adviser over a story that might otherwise just sound like 1970s  nostalgia. A couple of months ago, the paper published photos of a streaker at a fall football game. Autumn leaves or not, the editors didn’t do any “digital fig-leafing” of the images.

Of course the university can’t comment on the details of a personnel matter, but the Student Press Law Center quickly came to the defense of adviser Paul Isom. (His position, incidentally, reported to a marketing and publicity official at the university, not to the journalism faculty.)

“They’re clearly punishing the adviser for something he not only didn’t control, but legally couldn’t control,” Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, said.

The SPLC alert prompted a robust discussion by journalism faculty on an Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication mailing list — more than 30 messages in 24 hours, during a semester break. Professors addressed topics including the independence of student newspapers, community standards regarding nudity, the sensitivities of college administrators and public relations departments, and the responsibilities of student media advisers — as well as a need for student media advisers to get both their rights and responsibilities spelled out in advance.

You do not need to be a member to read the discussion here:

http://aejmc.net/pipermail/news-list_aejmc.net/2012-January/thread.html

I hope sharing the story with my intro class this semester will help me do a better job of addressing issues of sensitivity, diversity, community standards, taste and “responsibility.” Those issues aren’t just for editors-in-chief anymore, not when anyone can register a WordPress.com account like this one and start “publishing” to the world.

Along with my advice about “acting responsibly,” deciding whatever that means, I’ll also point out that student editors have a First Amendment right to ignore their advisers — but that they should be wise enough to listen, discuss and make thoughtful, informed decisions. For example, I wonder how many student publications have drafted their own editorial guidelines about possibly offensive images or language? I wonder if those guidelines were written when the publication’s audience was just on-campus, not a Web-published edition available to anyone in the world?

There might even be a nice research paper topic there for a grad student or two.

For inspiration, I’d point students to the ethics-related pages at: SPJ, SPLC and its FACT team, RTDNA and NPPA, and the College Media Association, including its page for advisers.

For the recent specific case, here are additional news reports mentioned in the journalism faculty discussion:

• http://theeastcarolinian.com/ (The school paper itself)
• http://theeastcarolinian.com/?p=2633 University fires student media director
• Greenville Daily Reflector
• WNCT.com Adviser Fired story
• WITN.com Adviser Fired story
• Raleigh News & Observer story (includes interview with adviser… N&O story has legs: Boston Herald)
• ScholarsAndRogues.com post by Denny Wilkins of St. Bonaventure, with its own discussion thread.
• Streaker isn’t college’s greatest embarrassment — by Gene Policinski, senior vice president/executive director, First Amendment Center, Nashville.

Nostalgic footnote: The first time I was on a television “Face the State” panel, it  was as education editor of The Hartford Courant, and the newsmaker was the relatively new president of the University of Connecticut, Glenn W. Ferguson. Between questions about political influence and university budget cuts, I threw in one about the Yale Daily News acknowledging that UConn led Yale in streaking that year. I thought his response — something about looking forward to Yale’s recognizing UConn’s excellence in other areas — was his best remark that day.

End of semester links for students who follow my blogs

For Web design or  journalism students getting interested in programming, or programmers getting interested in journalism, see my bookmarks tagged with the keywords “Journalism” and “Programming” at delicious.com.

For Portrayal of the Journalist in Popular Culture students who need one more story for their comparison papers, check the films-adapted-for-radio posts at JHeroes.com.

For journalism or Web design students trying WordPress for the first time, see the “WP Tips” tab at the top of this page and my “Not a blog” site, demonstrating that WordPress isn’t just for blogs these days.

For news writing students — or anyone — following the shooting story at Virginia Tech, try my list of New River Valley journalists using Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/bobstep/nrvj

Included are individual reporters at Roanoke and New River Valley area newspapers and television stations, and a few dedicated news-watchers who post useful updates.

The staff of the Collegiate Times at Virginia Tech did a terrific job, making extensive use of personal Twitter accounts covering both the breaking news of the shooting and the community support following it.  As I pointed out to my students on Friday, during a big story, “beat” definitions go out the window and everyone pitches in to get the story covered — hence some “sports” Twitter feeds passing along timely information about an event that was far from their usual upbeat Hokie news.