Mark Deuze speaks at Temple, watch the videos

Today, I had the pleasure of hearing one of the bloggers I read speak today. What was better is I got paid for it.

Mark Dueze , media theorist and writer of Deuzeblog, stopped by Temple Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab (where I work) to speak to the students and to promote his new book MediaWork. The book, as well as much of his presentation, is about Mark’s many interviews with creative professionals such as journalists, video game programmers, and advertisers. And I have to say it was one of the best lectures I have heard in my four years here.

First, he didn’t give us the usually doom and gloom, something that, as a student, pisses me off to no end. He also admitted as a journalism educator that colleges aren’t doing the best job of preparing students.

The video

Below are two videos that encompass the first half of the speech. I warn you, I recorded the presentation with a $100 camera, which was then compressed and put on YouTube. Therefore, the quality isn’t that high. Let me know if you are interested in the raw files.

Part One
Part Two Edit: (problem with number 2, will be fixed tomorrow)

Click through if you’d like to see a summary of his speech.

During his speech he covered the following three main points:

1. Zombification – Journalism as it stands is just like a zombie. Reporters are all doing the things they normally do just waiting for someone (or something to put them out of their misery). Unlike most other new media gurus, he said the content was a bigger problem that the technology behind. He found that journalism is turning inwards. As a example, he pointed to cable news that features journalists talking “as if they were at a bar”. Think of when Wolf Blitzer talks with a foreign corespondent. Thus, as news shows get longer, the actual news being presented is actually shrinking.As part of the “zombification” section of his speech he also noted the coniditions in which journlaists work. Often in buildings with no windows that literally has the reporters cut off from the rest of the world and focused on themselves. For example check out the lack of windows in the new New York Times building (an example he used).
2. Globalization – like many industries, media production is now a global affair. 56% of TV and Movies are shot outside of the U.S. 60% of video game work takes place outside the United States. As a result, there is a huge localization effort. Mark gave the example of Ghost Recon 2 that sold terribly in France because it depected American soldiers. Soon as Ubisoft changed the soliders to French, the games sales picked up.
3. Participation- readers are often looked at a screaming maniacs. Often journalists just care that there work garners a response while not really caring what that response says.

Above all, Mark said, we are all just fans. Journalists love what they cover and would do it for free. In fact, many bloggers, podcasters, and other proponents of new media do it simply for the love. There is nothing seperating the soccer blogger and the soccer columnist for Sports Illustrated. Human beings just want to be heard no matter what.

In closing his speech he offered the room full of undergrads this advice (and I paraphrase from memory): Whatever you are into now will probably gone tomorrow. But thats not necessarily a bad thing because there are a lot of new and beautiful things waiting for you, so go experience them.

Afterwards, I was lucky enought to have a quick chat with Mark and get a copy of the book, which I can hopefully read and review here after the murderous onslaught of finals are over.