Media, audiovisual content meets the digital universe: Catherine Lottier and Virginia Mouseler

Dividing lines in content are blurring: fiction/documentary, say. We now have hybrid genres: X meets Y (fiction with a bit of documentary benefit, documentary with a real-TV aspect to it, mix of real and virtual worlds.

On 9/11, CNN was a major news source for officials, never mind the public. Nowadays events come to our attention not via TV/radio, but social networks (think not just of the recent volcanic ash, but of the Mumbai attacks in 2008).

Visual codes of the digital universe (URLs, hashtags) are migrating into broadcast. Instead of story-telling, immersion. Comment culture: lots of programmes are now comment on other media, whether it be satire (The Daily Show).

How does this change things? See The Execution of Gary Glitter in the UJ, Mes Cheres Etudes in France, or The District in the US.

Also showed a clip of "Stand out from the crowd", a new Noel Edmonds property which looks like it was written for Charlie Brooker to take the piss out of. Edmonds' face bursts out of advertising hoardings to offer innocent members of the public a chance to WIN CASH PRIZES.

Mercedes Bunz

Algorithmically generated news in the US: "not to replace journalists, but to deliver material that journalists can build on".

Guardian Zeitgeist.

"Newspapers produce masses that don't even need to gather"

Design principles for Mag+: Bjorn Jeffrey, Bonnier R&D

  1. Silent mode. Less distractions. "Continuous partial attention" is a good thing in many ways, but not all your media experiences should be that way. We thought of interactivity in terms of layers: just as you have silent mode on a phone, you should have it in a magazine. It starts silent, but when you decide you want more it can move from passive to immersive.
  2. Clearly defined beginning and end. Simple linear flow, a defined storyline, a sense of completion.
  3. Designed for the screen. Don't make the user zoom in or out, make the content constantly readable.
  4. Advertising as content. People like advertising as long as it's relevant.