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1 – An ‘augmented’ audience

The insurgents have taken the floor! Private entrepreneurs have been stripped away of their right over the means of production and distribution of traditional media (the only successful Marxist revolution to date!) The written word has been democratized. Bid farewell to top-down journalism, traditionally taught in schools. It’s all about “crowdsourcing” and “crowdfunding”. Media outlets are at last communicating with each other.

2 – ‘Augmented’ peers

New media is letting go of its traditional contents and it’s letting in new contents from outside. Newsrooms, as a matter of course conservative, are losing their bunker mentality and becoming more open to the world and to their competitors. Collaborations between different types of media are proliferating. Network journalism and ‘mutualised’ journalism have a great future ahead.

3 -’Augmented’ links

Metadata and hyperlinks allow for network journalism, filtered from waste and purified. Journalists have become news jockeys, sifting through and reducing the information overload, acting like guides and finding the signal in the noise.

4 – Journalism & other trades

Data visualization, data journalism, visual journalism, web documentaries, web reporting, etc.. New forms of storytelling are blossoming combining the work of designers, developers and journalists. Those who manage to bring these trades together will take the lead.

5 -’Augmented’ innovation and new technologies

Online journalism is not about putting traditional newspaper or television content on the web. A different script is needed in order to engage with the new uses of the information revolution. We are met with a great unprecedented opportunity to represent reality with the latest technologies. The digital storytelling of the future makes use of geolocation technologies, animated maps, augmented reality, 3D, and so on.

6 – ‘Augmented’ added-value Journalism

Context is King! With the growing commoditization of information, there is a lot to be gained from putting facts into perspective. Collecting, editing, prioritizing and distributing them is not enough, we must analyze such information with a degree of speed hitherto only reserved for mere press releases. If traditional journalists believe that their ability to collect and organize facts will still make them indispensable, they’re dead wrong.
To remain relevant it’s no longer enough to provide further information known to all the day before or the same day, but to provide context, perspective, analysis to help the public understand the importance of what has happened, to look ahead and anticipate the future.

We must enrich information, in an editorial and technical fashion.

7 -’Augmented’ packaging

Victor Hugo once said “form is the essence brought to the surface”. Another thing that really makes the difference is the quality of access to content.

In an attention-based economy, where abundance of content has replaced its rarity, the available brain time will be increasingly hard to attract and retain! Design has become crucial, especially considering the plurality of distribution platforms now available  (smartphones, tablets, electronic ink …).

8 – ‘Augmented’ training, new jobs and enterprises

It’s not easy to learn to ride a bike when you’re 50. But we must get started and develop.The information revolution will wait for no one. New patterns have emerged in recent years in the job section: newspapers, magazines and television are now recruiting metadata editors, publishers specializing in search engines, community managers, visual journalists, aggregators, remixers, facilitators, etc..

Because of the ease with which one can establish an editorial business for an initial cost close to zero (no more printing, no more trucks to deliver newspapers, no more TV stations) those with good ideas feel encouraged to take action and start their own media, alone or in small groups.

9 – ‘Augmented’ experimentation

A mini R&D unit or a medialab are needed to assess the pace of change in the profession and take advantage of opportunities offered by new technologies. We must test ideas all the time, and take risks without being paralyzed by fear of failure. All hail the beta!

10 -’Augmented’ confidence

This is the most challenging mission, as well as the most important in a society where distrust of the corporate body is growing at breakneck speed.

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Translated by Federica Cocco

Images and Flickr CC Elsa Secco Matthew Clark Photography & Design