Sam, in turn, your view of the restaurant analogy is very telling too! I'm
glad you made that observation. I'd carefully picked something I thought was
common but I was short-sighted.

Re technophile, yes that's the word, although one doesn't hear it used so
often.

Btw, I have done a little work in India - have you seen trAce's Dawn Quilt
for South Asia, sponsored by the British Council?
http://www.literaturequilt.org/dawnquilt/

sue

-----Original Message-----
From: sam miller [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 19 May 2005 11:19
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [WDL] May Topic: Technophobia, writers and writing

Hi Sue

I found your restaurant review analogy very telling. Imagine writing a
review of a restaurant for an audience who had never been to one. Now
imagine writing a review for regular restaurant goers. They would be very
different. The same could be true of an account of new technology.

This is no excuse for inaccuracy, inbalance and poor research on the part of
any journalist. But I hope it might explain why some journalists are less
zealous, less excited about technology than many people on this list. (What
is the opposite of technophobe, by the way - are you happy with
technophile?).

And for those 'technophile' journalists who are writing for general
audiences it is important to imagine/remember what it is like never to have
'visited' a chatroom. Otherwise their journalism is likely to be
inaccessible to most of the people they are attempting to reach.

Incidentally, I live in a country, India, which is remarkably
untechnophobic, but where access to new technology is low and where a large
percentage of the population have neither used a computer, or, for that
matter, visited what most westerners would think of as a restaurant.

Sam




>From: Sue Thomas <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: [WDL] May Topic: Technophobia, writers and writing
>Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 09:50:44 +0100
>
>Hi Sam, and welcome. This list is very much about the interaction between
>people and technologies and I think what people have been saying is that
>many journalists are unable to comment intelligently on the impact of new
>technologies because they have not taken the time to involve themselves.
>
>One may imagine that immersion in every story one writes is irrelevant and
>impractical but the internet is an important example of where this is not
>true. The example I would use is - imagine being asked to write a
>restaurant
>review without ever having sat down and eaten in one. You could peer
>through
>the glass and make some observations, but without an understanding of the
>menu or an appreciation of the ways things work in restaurants, your
>commentary would be pretty uninformed and meaningless.
>
>The same is true, for example, of journalists who comment endlessly on
>'chatrooms' without ever having spent any amount of time in one (a flying
>one-off logon doesn't count!) and often confuse them with asynchronous
>message boards. Not only is this shoddy journalism, it can also be
>irresponsible and dangerous.
>
>That's what people were getting at, I think.
>
>Best
>
>Sue
>
>
>
>Subject: Re: [WDL] May Topic: Technophobia, writers and writing
>
>Hi - everyone on this list.
>
>My name is Sam and I signed up to this list at the start - and until now
>haven't felt engaged enough (or courageous enough) to take part. I'm a
>journalist and a writer, and am currently involved in training projects
>aimed at improving the skills of working journalists. That includes
>introducing many of them to new technology.
>
>So I'm particularly interested in the comments below. I think that
>journalists are pretty much like the rest of the population (and that's, in
>principle, a good thing) in having a sizeable minority of both technophobes
>and early-adopters (or zealots) among them; but that the majority belong
>with the herd - though the smart ones may run along on the outside for a
>good view.
>
>My own position is that (good?) journalists should be less interested in
>the
>new processes and the new technologies per se, than in why they excite some
>people so much, or terrify others. Yes - journalists are paid to be curious
>- but on the whole they should be more curious about people rather than
>about things and ideas and technologies. New technologies can help them
>meet
>deadlines, but I'm also concerned that the breadth and depth of (sometime
>unreliable) information available can also distract from their core
>business
>of getting out and meeting people, and telling their stories.
>
>Sam