Emily Metzgar

I’m happy to report that I successfully defended my dissertation on Friday.

My research is focused on the impact of blogs on state politics around the United States. A short summary of the research is available here.

I’m now tying up loose ends in preparation for my move to Indiana University at Bloomington.

More discussion of the disruptive impact of interactive technologies on established media and political institutions to come, so watch this space!

Interactive media and readers becoming producers is about more than warm and fuzzy stories about ambient intimacy — although as yesterday’s post indicates, I’m all for that application of interactive technologies.

Citizen-driven media can also be a force for change. Indeed, that is the premise of my research focused on the disruptive potential of interactive technologies on established political and media institutions.

Here are a couple examples of these technologies playing a role in telling stories that might otherwise have gone unheard:

Thanks to The Ethical Blogger for highlighting this site (caution: graphic images) with news about political violence in Zimbabwe that has gone largely unreported in the U.S. press and elsewhere.

Similar leakage of information took place following the protests in Tibet with images of protesters and their injuries.

Are images of the destruction in Myanmar soon to surface, too? As the two examples above illustrate, news reported by citizens often highlights the incongruities between reality and official statements. So when unofficial images of the destruction in Myanmar go public, the junta is going to be hard pressed to justify keeping out the relief workers who are standing ready to assist as soon as the government gives them permission to enter.

With interactive technologies, increasingly few stories go untold. The question is: when will the audience do more than just watch the video?

In this interview, Maureen Dowd weighs in on the subject of political news becoming fodder for late-night television shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Dowd notes that she watches more of those two shows than she watches the nightly news.

Asked if traditional journalism should feel threatened by these trends she says, “It doesn’t matter to me what the delivery system is. The more, the better, the more populist, the better, the more people engaged, the better, but in the end, it’s about the story and about human nature.”

This sentiment is at the core of my research focused on the disruptive nature of interactive media on both political and media institutions.

This is a great piece about the role of social media in daily life.  Having recently reconnected with several friends from high school via Facebook I couldn’t agree more with the arguments in favor of “ongoing connectedness,” as Jeff Jarvis refers to it.

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