Bridging Media: A Translation of Two Languages

Posted on April 14, 2008 by ericahargreave

Hello All,

Been enjoying reading everyone’s posts on Bridging Media! Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts! I think one of my favourite quotes was Meg and I being referred to as ‘digirati darlings’ in Jordan Behran’s blog posts. Never been called a ‘digirati darling’ before!!! Quite liked it!

Another note in Morten’s blog that hit a chord with me was the mention that one of the obstacles in building a bridge between traditional broadcast and digital media is that the two communities speak two different languages. It is this point that I want to address in this post. Megan and I realized in the process of building towards the inaugural Bridging Media that one of the areas that creates misunderstanding between the broadcast and digital communities is in the use of ‘terminology’. I myself am guilty of this. As Meg and I were building to the event, I referred to the digital media community as the ‘tech community’ or ‘techies’ and Megan after looking at me strangely on more than a few occasions finally clarified this misconception of mine. ‘Techies’ are ‘technical people that work with technical things, like lighting and sound equipment’ or within the digital community they are ‘the people that code and build things on drupal’. She, a social media consultant, is not a ‘techie’. The term we should be using for this community was ‘digital media’ or ‘digital experts’.

Photo by John Bollwitt

I realized it was not only me and the broadcast community that was confused with regards to the correct ‘terminology’ as I read a few of the Bridging Media posts. It seems that there is the misconception that what we are terming the ‘broadcast community’ simply refers to the ‘broadcaster’ – ‘the person that works for the networks commissioning the shows’. To clarify here the broadcast community refers to everyone that works in film, television and video – broadcasters, filmmakers, producers, writers, directors, camera operators and the list goes on. A wide variety of skill sets, I know, but then the digital media community is similarly represented by a wide variety of skills sets. Proportionately the ‘commissioning editors’ represent a small number of the ‘broadcast community’, especially in BC, as most of these individuals work in Toronto where their networks are based. We were quite fortunate at our inaugural Bridging Media event to have a decent representation of the broadcast decision makers at the event. That said I was told by one that it is us – the filmmakers, producers, writers, and digital media experts that the broadcast decision makers are looking at for the lead on where to go with the future of media and not the other way around. Making us for all intensive purposes the decision makers in building the future of media!

Photo by James Sherrett

Similarly we were most fortunate at the inaugural Bridging Media event as the event was attended by a fairly even mixture of individuals from these two communities – approximately 66 individuals from the broadcast community, 63 from the digital media community and a handful of others. As Bridging Media grows we hope to address more and more of the individuals from both these communities and clarify more language misconceptions as we encounter them, allowing us to gain understanding and appreciation for each others crafts, so that we can strive to speak the same language with one another as we build the future of media together.

Filed under: Bridging Media, Event, Resources, Technology, Vancouver | Tagged: Bridging Media, broadcasters, defining, digital media, translating