TEDxBrussels
“These are your weapons, this our way to democracy”
Xavier Damman
As one of the oldest disciplines generating meaning, Journalism is in its turn making the shift from reporting news to making sense of the pieces of news. “If everybody is a reporter, not everybody is a journalist”, argues Xavier Damman in his TEDxBrussels talk:“How social media is changing the News”.
“Now more than ever we need journalists to help us make sense of all the reports.” And more than this, we need journalists to create empathy: the difference between war and peace. And closing the cycle, we need good facilitators journalists to empower us into getting involved and making a difference.
Photo credit @Kilheure : “A Star Trek roof and Peter Jansen who
builds a transponder Welcome in Sci-fi #beleiveinyourdream
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This is a gigantic task for journalists and Xavier Damman is throwing down the gauntlet:“building this global network where we are all connected and we can all share knowledge and solutions is probably the biggest human endeavor since we put a man on the moon.”
Yet this time, the audience’s job is not watching it on TV. We, the audience, are part of it. While Journalists are facilitators, connectors and meaning generators, we are both the audience and the media. In order to reach for that deeper level of individual and collective meaning, we need to take responsibility for making our voice heard, regardless of where we might come from and of one’s fitting or “missfitting” society’s rules. We need to take responsibility even for being awesomely weird. As long as we “embrace our vulnerabilities” (Dale Stephens) and even our “thoughtful ignornce” (Dr. Stuart Firestein), we will each expand and change the world. “Giving and sharing and getting people excited about things and ideas, helps continuing the cycle of the joy of figuring things out.” Peter Jansen remind us.
It is therefore one of the biggest challenges for Journalists to involve and empower everyone in purposefully contributing. And more than this, to facilitate making sense and meaning out of a level of entropy long surpassing what they once new as the Shannon-Weaver model.
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