Out with the old, in with the new.

Lift10 is happening in Geneva right now! The group of students that won free passes offered by the City of Geneva to participate in Lift will be blogging on the conference happenings...

Amy Baker talks about "The old new media" session.... (edited by Sachin Gaur)

Today’s session, “The Old Media” kicked off with a lecture from Catherine Lottier and Virginia Mouseler where they enlightened the audience on their interesting theory: THE GRAND MASHUP!! They discussed hybrid genres on TV, where television programs can no longer be categorized into one group but rather a fusion of many. They showed us a variety of examples such as The Execution of David Glitter, The District and Mes Cheres Etudes where fiction meets documentary. The District was particularly interesting where President Obama is featured in a reality “The Hills” type show that follows his day-to-day life in the White House. Catherine and Virginia also discussed the emergence of comment culture, where programs like The Daily Show use information or TV news footage to tell a completely different story.

Mercedes Bunz from The Guardian, discussed how mathematic algorithms have already begun to report the new. But have no fear journalists, algorithms won’t replace journalism entirely … but are meant to be used as a platform for journalists to elaborate on. One example that I found particularly fascinating was The Guardian’s Zeitgeist site. Zeitgeist is able to choose stories by itself and then some kind of crazy program allows an algorithm do to the work that is essentially editorial decisions based on algorithm methods. Mercedes also discuss how technology is so dynamic that when one technology changes, it affects many others. I would have liked to have heard more examples of this, as I can’t think of many by myself.

Björn Jeffrey followed Mercedes with his Demo on Mag+. From what I understood, Mag+ is basically a digital magazine that pushes for interactivity but starts off silently to allow for passive/immersive experiences for the reader.

The last speaker to conclude our session was independent podiatrist Helena Chanson Höglund. What does fixing feet have to do with the old media? Well for one, technology hasn’t affected any aspect of her career and two, well … you got me there.