The multidimensionality of news sources and outputs is overwhelming. The daily bombardment of podcasts, tweets, blogs, clouds, apps, tags and tings, even to a hardened hack like me, is pretty exhausting.
And, no matter how indefatigable I am, the root problem still remains. Social media has eroded the definitions of what journalism is and requires us to establish a new way of understanding what we are and what we do.
Terms such as 'old media', 'new media', 'online news', even 'blogger', no longer really mean anything within this evolving media ecology. There are so many different genres of blogger; so many different kinds of media organisation; so many types of networked journalist. The relationships are too complex and too embroiled for those labels to cut the mustard.
For a forthcoming book, my co-author, Megan Knight, and I are trying to help to redefine a matrix of how journalists operate within these constantly changing patterns of source and output. Change will continue and, rather than homing in on titles and labels, journalists need to be able to understand where they fit within the media landscape. This will be all the more important as the need to maximise the impact of content and connectivity becomes more acute.
We need to be thinking about how news organisations interact with one another, as well as how and where they get their content. How, and in what ways, do the objectives of news organisations differ, and what effect does this have on their position within the media matrix? What are the relationships between input and output, and how does this affect journalists' identity? Anyone can produce content: it is the level of engagement, access to sources, ability to open doors, issues of trust, contacts and working practices that define a producer's position in terms of input. As for outputs, the factors may include distribution strategies, motivations, economic drivers and connectivity.
This is where events such as #bbcsms - with the chance to discuss key issues concerning journalists' identity, positioning and strategy - are key.
This is certainly not an exercise in devising ever more complicated terms or phrases. I like to think of journalists as 'participatory connectors', but fans of Clay Shirky, Manuel Castells, Jeff Jarvis or Mark Deuze will have heard 'networked journalists', 'authenticators', and 'journalists as filters' all doing their rounds.
Ultimately, whether you are a writer, editor, citizen journalist, blogger or columnist, the title is less important than the relationship between source and output that defines you. The matrix is about understanding where a journalist fits in relation to their own micro connections and outputs, and where a media organisation or institution sits at the macro level.
Clare Cook is a senior journalism lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire. She is an award-winning print and magazine journalist, currently working on her first book with co-author Megan Knight, Social Media for Journalists - Principles and Practices. She tweets @cecook.
