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Sharon has an extensive education, including graduate studies in Journalism from Carlton University. Sharon worked as a freelance travel writer for the Edmonton Journal for many years. Prior to retirement, Sharon worked extensively in media literacy, radio production, and film classification here in the province of Alberta. Throughout the 1990's and early 2000's Sharon was travelling the globe discussing issues surrounding the media landscape. Rebecca and Sharon sit down together in the den of Sharon's home to explore five questions involving life before the internet.
Methodology
The Chatterbox team conducted a personal interview with our participant Sharon McCann. Teammate Rebecca Collins interviewed Ms. McCann in her home on Wednesday, May 4. 2022.
Prior the the interview, the team reflected on our objectives for the interview and decided on the following questions:
How would you describe your day to day life prior to the emergence of the internet?
What media did you use before the internet? Is there anything you miss about your use of media pre-internet?
What issues dominated the media space in your community prior to the internet?
How did the internet change your daily life?
How do you use the internet most?
What headlines do you think are dominating the news now? How has your community been represented?
These questions were chosen because they allowed us to gain an understanding of the interviewee’s use of media pre-internet and how that has evolved through the digital revolution. We also wanted to explore Taras’ (2015) idea that traditional media play a crucial role in building a sense of community and national identity. Additionally, we allowed for rider questions to be included when the interviewee comes up with an idea that is useful but not part of the written questions. We wanted to analyze the experience of the interviewee and explore the possible shift.
Analysis
Ms. McCann’s described experience with changing media consumption is marked with many of the characteristics of media shock (Taras, 2015). Throughout McCann’s lifetime, she’s gone from spending hours in the library and scanning through microfiche to having everything “at your fingertips” (Sharon McCann, Personal Communication, May 11, 2022). Her comments on the proliferance of screens, lack of in-person connection and onslaught of marketing emails are examples how, as Taras (2015) described, “web-based media have permeated virtually every aspect of daily life”.
As a former journalist, McCann is well equipped to reflect critically about changes in traditional media. She echoes Taras’ concerns that the decline in audiences and revenue may soon render traditional media unable to deliver quality journalism (Taras, 2015).
McCann also voiced concerns about the integrity of news today and especially the negative ramifications of what Taras described as “citizen journalism” (Taras, 2015).
“You know, what we've got now is so much misinformation because everybody is a journalist now. You can post anything on the internet. You can tell whatever lies you want, you can diss anybody uh [sic] if something happens, there's so many different versions and people will spread misinformation faster than a virus. In fact, it's a little ironic that there is the expression Going Viral,” said McCann (Sharon McCann, Personal communication, May 11, 2022).
McCann seems to agree with Taras (2015) that journalists play a critical role in our democracy by providing daily information and accountability; she has lost her trust in the system. She believes she can no longer read the news and know “somebody responsible went out and did the research… to make sure that what they were printing…was accurate” (Sharon McCann, Personal communication, May 11, 2022).
Perhaps most troublingly, McCann worries about the negative impact the decline in quality journalism and rise in social media fake news and ‘cancel culture’ can have on individuals who are the subject of misinformation. She stated that the media is increasingly cruel and can be used “as a weapon” (Sharon McCann, Personal communication, May 11, 2022).
While McCann does echo Couldry’s (2020) sentiment that media transmissions are overwhelming in their frequency, she does give an example of how digital media was helpful in “selecting and preserving” (Couldry, 2020) what is important to her.
“I had a very close friend of mine die about four years ago. And she was a really good writer. She was a journalist and uh [sic] she wrote great letters and I couldn't delete them. And so every now and then I'll scroll way down and find Francis's emails. And it kind of brings her back to me. She lived in Ireland and I've always visited her when I went to Ireland and she came to visit me here a number of times or in Newfoundland, I should say. And so it's sort of that's a delightful aspect I guess. So, I mean, of course you can have real letters and have them tied in a ribbon up in the attic. But there's something kind of neat about being able to carry books around that don't weigh anything and being able to preserve pieces of writing that, you know, or poetry or uh you know, stories that you like.”
Although they are not are not time-biased media like physical letters, the emails continue to connect McCann and Francis across both time and space. Even when she was living, the emails created what Taras (2015) described as “a presence in absence”.
Finally, McCann would seem to agree with the “crucial role” media has in giving Canadians “a sense of both community and national belonging” (Taras, 2015). While the news in Gander has shifted from an optimistic sense of growth and excitement to being “depressing” , the ability to connect back to her home community while away remains important (Sharon McCann, Personal communication, May 11, 2022).
Conclusion
An exploration of changes in media, our Internet Encounters interview confirmed many of the concepts we have been exploring in class. Ms. McCann explains how profoundly she has experienced media shock in her lifetime. Topics range from the way she conducts her daily life, how her community has been represented, and how she engages with communications media. Sharon MccCann explores the dangers of citizen journalism along with its relation to misinformation and disinformation. She warns of troubling trends in the media and her concerns for the unknowns surrounding digital media; could our democracy be at risk?
However, Ms. McCann can see the two sides of the internet coin. She speaks on the power of the internet to connect those to one another between space, time, and even life itself. This paradox of the media leaves us with potentially more questions than answers. How is it that our communities have become so disconnected, in a hyper connected digital age?
The power and impact of the digital media ecosystem is explored intimately and holistically in this 30 minute interview. The Chatterboxes found Ms. McCann’s insights strongly echo the ideas explored thus far in the MACT program. The interview is certainly worth the listen.
References
Couldry, N. (2020). Media: Why it Matters. Polity Press.
Taras, D. (2015). Digital mosaic : Media, power, and identity in canada. University of Toronto Press.
Really well done. I listened to portions of the interview, but I wasn't clear on the YouTube video, which appears to run only 17 seconds or so. The transcript is well documents, which provides a solid foundation on which to parse the conversation. The analysis is insightful and confirms many of the comments from Taras. The choice of informant was good, as this individual clearly has opinions on the state of the media today. Overall, excellent work so far on the assignment. Keep it up!
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