Pioneering journalist-blogger Dan Gillmor to speak on being “mediactive”

March 21st, 2011

Journalist and citizen media guru Dan Gillmor will be speaking about his new book, Mediactive, at NTU on Monday 28 March. All are welcome.

DAN GILLMOR

MEDIACTIVE: WHY WE SHOULD ALL BE

PARTICIPANTS IN MEDIA, NOT JUST CONSUMERS

Synopsis: We’re in an age of information overload, and too much of what we watch, hear and read is mistaken, deceitful or even dangerous. Yet we can take control and make media serve us – all of us – by being active consumers and participants.

Date: 28 March 2011 Time: 10am – 12noon

Venue: LT 11, Blk NS2, NTU

To register: click here or email siddeeqa@ntu.edu.sg

Gillmor is renowned as probably the first journalist to have a professional blog, while he was a technology writer in Silicon Valley’s San Jose Mercury News. His first book, We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People (2004), was highly influential, urging journalists to shift from “lecture” mode to “conversation” mode in their dealings with the public.

On his new book, Mediactive, Gillmor says, “My goal with this project is to help turn passive media consumers into active users — as participants at every step of the process starting with what we read.”

He is so committed to this new way of doing business that the project lives under a Creative Commons licence and can be downloaded freely as a PDF from his website. However, for a more comfortable read, you can pick up a copy of the properly bound book at the book talk.

Gillmor is visiting Singapore next week as a guest of the Temasek Foundation – NTU Asia Journalism Fellowship and the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.

Next Monday’s book talk is organised by NTU Libraries.