02
May
2006
Major
changes start with small steps, and big ideas need to be tested and
tweaked before they become reality. For the past few months, the staff
of the River Cities' Reader has been throwing around big ideas and developing major changes.
Over the next
few months, we'll be rolling out many new projects and concepts, all of
them aimed at providing a richer experience for the people we've
previously called our "readers." Soon, we hope, you'll be our readers
as well as our listeners, watchers, watchdogs, and collaborators.
But keep in mind: It all begins with baby steps.
In this issue, Steve Banks offers his review of Terry Rathje's one-person show at the MidCoast Fine Arts Gallery in LeClaire. In the paper, the review looks and reads like an art review, full of Steve's curiosity about and understanding of the artistic process and the work it produces.
But while the printed review used to be the final product, it is now one of many products that come from a group process.
On April 22, the Reader convened a small panel of artists and art enthusiasts at the gallery to discuss Rathje's work: the artist himself, Banks, St. Ambrose University professor Les Bell, glass artist Mark Fowler, MidCoast Fine Arts curator Jodean Rousey Murdock, and Reader Publisher Todd McGreevy.
The idea was simple: The more eyes and brains the better.
For 90 minutes, this group discussed the exhibit, evaluating individual pieces, talking about the artistic process and meaning, and developing an understanding of Rathje's work as a whole. It was an invigorating, enlightening, open-minded, and fun session. We recorded audio and video from it, and some of that is already available on the Reader Web site. (To download an audio version of the roundtable, click here.)
The discussion was successful enough that we're implementing our plan to make it a monthly event. In May, Banks will be facilitating a dialogue about the Venus Envy exhibit at the Bucktown Center for the Arts. We're also considering making these monthly roundtables public events, so that art lovers from the Quad Cities can not only watch but participate, asking questions and offering their interpretations.
The premise of this roundtable was that our job as a media organ is not merely to judge the art exhibit but to engage the community in a conversation about it. Reviews have their place, but they are by their nature one-sided. We want to enlarge the scope of the discussion, and bring more people into it. And then we want to give everybody access to the unfiltered dialogue, so that they can make their own decisions and contributions.
This is just one way the Reader plans to use its Internet presence to not just chase trends but actually provide a more vibrant community discussion. The Web affords us the opportunity to give you multimedia experiences unlike those that any other local media outlet is offering.
Already, we've posted audio versions of interviews with luminaries as disparate as Buckwheat Zydeco, Neko Case, and Robert Bly, along with the River Music Experience's Lon Bozarth. In the pipeline is RCSPAN, which will give videographers and street teams a distribution platform, and will offer users access to unedited videos of local news and arts events.
The Reader used to be a newspaper with a Web site. Slowly, in the coming months and years, it will become a multimedia company that publishes a newspaper.
Even more exciting, though, are the opportunities for genuine and meaningful collaboration.
Many media outlets, of course, allow their readers to post comments on articles, and when we re-launch the Reader Web site in the next few months, we'll do that as well. Blogs and podcasts have become ubiquitous and give virtually everybody the opportunity to express themselves. They also give people the ability to consume media in the form most convenient for them - text, video, or audio.
But comments and blogs and podcasts by themselves don't amount to much in the larger concern of community discussion; even at their best, they tend to be a series of people talking, rather than discussing, debating, and building consensus. Beyond those methods, the Reader will employ the same tool behind the wildly successful Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org), which has shown that accuracy, thoughtfulness, and even-handedness can come from a virtually unmediated process.
Think of the possibilities.
What if, instead of shouting at each other at public meetings about a pork-processing plant, a hotel/casino project on Davenport's riverfront, or the "market district," the community came together in a virtual space to find common ground? What if as the result of this genuinely public process, the community could present interested parties with carefully crafted alternatives to the often binary choices they're asked to make - alternatives that might not have even been considered? What if, by expanding the conversation beyond people with vested interests - and wresting control of the forum away from them - companies and government could build greater consensus, thus reducing the level of rancor while increasing community investment?
That's our admittedly idealistic vision. Honestly, we don't know whether we can pull it off, but we're going to try. A draft of the mission statement for our new Web site reads:
"To empower citizens and their community using Web tools that foster discussion and collaboration.
"The primary goals include :
"• increasing the amount, usefulness, and openness of public debate on issues of civic interest;
"• expanding community knowledge and wisdom; and
"• improving public policy and projects."
The statement was crafted with civic issues such as the Isle of Capri hotel/casino in mind, but it will probably be revised to reflect a similar approach to the arts. The artist-roundtable idea stemmed from a dissatisfaction gleaned from a Figge Artists Advisory Council meeting regarding the level of discourse in the mainstream media. This is our first effort at boosting the amount and sophistication of that conversation.
Fundamentally, that's our interest with all of our planned endeavors. We don't merely want to allow comments on articles simply because everybody else allows comments; while comments are a useful tool, they generate a lot of noise and little discernible benefit. We want to use interactive, multimedia, and collaborative tools to make the Quad Cities better.
But keep in mind: It all begins with baby steps.
In this issue, Steve Banks offers his review of Terry Rathje's one-person show at the MidCoast Fine Arts Gallery in LeClaire. In the paper, the review looks and reads like an art review, full of Steve's curiosity about and understanding of the artistic process and the work it produces.
But while the printed review used to be the final product, it is now one of many products that come from a group process.
On April 22, the Reader convened a small panel of artists and art enthusiasts at the gallery to discuss Rathje's work: the artist himself, Banks, St. Ambrose University professor Les Bell, glass artist Mark Fowler, MidCoast Fine Arts curator Jodean Rousey Murdock, and Reader Publisher Todd McGreevy.
The idea was simple: The more eyes and brains the better.
For 90 minutes, this group discussed the exhibit, evaluating individual pieces, talking about the artistic process and meaning, and developing an understanding of Rathje's work as a whole. It was an invigorating, enlightening, open-minded, and fun session. We recorded audio and video from it, and some of that is already available on the Reader Web site. (To download an audio version of the roundtable, click here.)
The discussion was successful enough that we're implementing our plan to make it a monthly event. In May, Banks will be facilitating a dialogue about the Venus Envy exhibit at the Bucktown Center for the Arts. We're also considering making these monthly roundtables public events, so that art lovers from the Quad Cities can not only watch but participate, asking questions and offering their interpretations.
The premise of this roundtable was that our job as a media organ is not merely to judge the art exhibit but to engage the community in a conversation about it. Reviews have their place, but they are by their nature one-sided. We want to enlarge the scope of the discussion, and bring more people into it. And then we want to give everybody access to the unfiltered dialogue, so that they can make their own decisions and contributions.
This is just one way the Reader plans to use its Internet presence to not just chase trends but actually provide a more vibrant community discussion. The Web affords us the opportunity to give you multimedia experiences unlike those that any other local media outlet is offering.
Already, we've posted audio versions of interviews with luminaries as disparate as Buckwheat Zydeco, Neko Case, and Robert Bly, along with the River Music Experience's Lon Bozarth. In the pipeline is RCSPAN, which will give videographers and street teams a distribution platform, and will offer users access to unedited videos of local news and arts events.
The Reader used to be a newspaper with a Web site. Slowly, in the coming months and years, it will become a multimedia company that publishes a newspaper.
Even more exciting, though, are the opportunities for genuine and meaningful collaboration.
Many media outlets, of course, allow their readers to post comments on articles, and when we re-launch the Reader Web site in the next few months, we'll do that as well. Blogs and podcasts have become ubiquitous and give virtually everybody the opportunity to express themselves. They also give people the ability to consume media in the form most convenient for them - text, video, or audio.
But comments and blogs and podcasts by themselves don't amount to much in the larger concern of community discussion; even at their best, they tend to be a series of people talking, rather than discussing, debating, and building consensus. Beyond those methods, the Reader will employ the same tool behind the wildly successful Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org), which has shown that accuracy, thoughtfulness, and even-handedness can come from a virtually unmediated process.
Think of the possibilities.
What if, instead of shouting at each other at public meetings about a pork-processing plant, a hotel/casino project on Davenport's riverfront, or the "market district," the community came together in a virtual space to find common ground? What if as the result of this genuinely public process, the community could present interested parties with carefully crafted alternatives to the often binary choices they're asked to make - alternatives that might not have even been considered? What if, by expanding the conversation beyond people with vested interests - and wresting control of the forum away from them - companies and government could build greater consensus, thus reducing the level of rancor while increasing community investment?
That's our admittedly idealistic vision. Honestly, we don't know whether we can pull it off, but we're going to try. A draft of the mission statement for our new Web site reads:
"To empower citizens and their community using Web tools that foster discussion and collaboration.
"The primary goals include :
"• increasing the amount, usefulness, and openness of public debate on issues of civic interest;
"• expanding community knowledge and wisdom; and
"• improving public policy and projects."
The statement was crafted with civic issues such as the Isle of Capri hotel/casino in mind, but it will probably be revised to reflect a similar approach to the arts. The artist-roundtable idea stemmed from a dissatisfaction gleaned from a Figge Artists Advisory Council meeting regarding the level of discourse in the mainstream media. This is our first effort at boosting the amount and sophistication of that conversation.
Fundamentally, that's our interest with all of our planned endeavors. We don't merely want to allow comments on articles simply because everybody else allows comments; while comments are a useful tool, they generate a lot of noise and little discernible benefit. We want to use interactive, multimedia, and collaborative tools to make the Quad Cities better.
