MEDIATOR –
a journalistic and pedagogical experiment
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• By the end of 1994 The Danish School of Journalism was an active participant in the MEDIATOR experiment, a joint European project, aiming among other things, to offer suggestions as to how Integrated Broadband Communications might be applied in future journalistic places of work and to the media of the future.
MEDIATOR was a part of the EU-commission’s TEN-IBC projects (Trans European Networks Integrated Broadband Communications). The MEDIATOR-project’s aim was to conduct tests in four different areas:
1. Running a news agency where the media components include graphics, pictures, sound and video. Special attention was given to the collaboration between different agencies in interlinking their products to one final multimedia product.
2. An advertising experiment concentrating on the formation of electronic adds. The on-line access to the picture library would enable the advertising agency to browse for appropriate images.
3. Video/audio news on demand. The material would consist of news material from OnLine Park Berlin, received in digital form through the ATM Pilot – or additional satellite material encoded at UNI-C.
4. The Electronic News Supplement experiment – which would offer an interface to news, advertising and services supplementing a newspaper. An electronic daily newspaper would be created at the Danish test site and a magazine about electronic publishing would be created in England.
The partners
The partners of MEDIATOR cover important aspects in news production. They include:
The News and Graphics Agency:
Ritzaus Bureau, Copenhagen, Denmark, by far the largest Danish news agency. Every day RB transmits approximately 90.000 words to newspapers, radio and television.
The Picture and Video Agencies:
Nordfoto, Copenhagen, Denmark, a Danish photo agency, possesses 15 million pictures and is an agent for Associated Press.
Hulton Deutsch, London, England, a photo agency, possesses 15 million pictures of historical and current importance, has a direct feed for archiving Reuter’s images and manages the Syndication International Library.
OnLine Park, Berlin, Germany, is a newly started company specialising in digital transmission of information.
The Mediator:
The Danish School of Journalism, Aarhus, Denmark, has approximately 950 students and 70 people at the staff. It is the only school of journalism in Denmark.
Pira International, London, England, has for 65 years been a membership-based research association for the paper, packaging, printing and publishing industries in the UK.
Information and network service providers:
UNI-C, the Danish Computing Centre for Research and Education, is one of the leading Danish national centres in multimedia and a major supplier of Internet access and services.
Two Danish trials
In the Danish part of the project we developed two parallel experiments: one was suggested by Ritzau’s Bureau and Nordfoto and was primarily the fulfilment of the first experiment – a news agency where various media components were combined.
The second experiment was carried out by students at The Danish School of Journalism – and was first and foremost an attempt to visualize what a future electronic news agency should look like.
Practically the majority of the Danish experiments took place at UNI-C in Århus a couple of hundred meters from The Danish School of Journalism. Some of the time the experiments took place in two basements in close proximity of each other:
The news agency part delivered material to among others the electronic newspaper part, which tried to give its view to future news reporting during a hectic and intensive period. Frequent meetings were held between the two involved, where experience were exchanged and immediate reports were given on the work of the other part – but apart from this we kept the experiments separated. Thus the two basements might as well have been situated one in each end of the country…
The MEDIATOR trial
Even though, MEDIATOR is presented as one collective experiment it is important, in order to understand how we worked, to keep the two primary experiments separated. Even though, the means available were the same ones our two goals were different:
On the one side we had suggestions as to how the future electronic news agency might look like – on the other side we had suggestions as to how a future electronic “newspaper” might look like. In the following I will try to describe my experience with the two experiments, naturally with main weight on the part I was engaged in myself as a teacher/motivator.
First the news service part: At the Danish news market today Ritzau’s Bureau has what looks like a monopoly status. The Bureau is jointly owned by the Danish daylies and its news reporting has therefore been primarily aimed at the needs of the ownership. The delivery has primarily – indeed only – consisted of words. However, within recent years the areas of Ritzau’s Bureau’s services have expanded to include a graphic service which deliver news graphichs on a daily basis, which is increasingly used in Danish papers.
Whereas the words for several years have originated from Ritzau’s Bureau the pictures have originated from several sources. Two major newspaper offices (Politiken og Berlingske) has each founded a photoservice; Polfoto and Nordfoto respectively, which function as suppliers of Danish and foreign pictures to the Danish newspapers.
In practice the reality at Danish editorial offices has been to receive a flow of telegrams from Ritzau’s Bureau – and a certain amount of pictures from either Polfoto or Nordfoto. Every day a number of editorial secretaries on the Danish newspapers have mixed two different flows of news – to find out if picture and text were in accordance with each other.
During the MEDIATOR-trial the “news agency” started to deliver so-called package deals to a much higher degree. Packages which contained text and pictures as well as graphics. As something quite new, according to Danish standards, supplementary texts. For example “old” telegrams which were useful as either documentation or background information for a new development in a given case.
Also, in connection with the test a row of experiments were carried out, supplying what could be called the basis idea of the service including moving pictures, sound effects etc. On a long view one could well imagine that the sound effect part could be a substantial asset to a number of local radio stations.
I have no doubt that working with this project has started a process with the parties. When you, throughout a longer period, try to give a suggestion as to how one’s future product should look like it will of course be influential to the product. Anyway, I am convinced that Denmark in time to come will see more stories which, by the primary deliverers, are thought of as a whole – so that we to a lesser degree than today experience words as one puzzle to a jigsaw, pictures as another puzzle etc. The general thought is in that connection a key word – and personnally I incidentally think that this way is the only one in which to secure the survival of the media.
The “KLIK”-trial
The part of the MEDIATOR-project, which I followed most closely was the development of the future electronic newspaper. The focus was an exciting, journalistic and pedagogical experiment, which I will try to describe further.
The background was that six students from The Danish School of Journalism should cooperate in trying to look into the crystalball: How do we visualize new and different ways of making electronic newspapers?
The six students were all students from the class I teach at the school of journalism. That is, students presently taking their last term of a total of four years education. They have all returned to the school following a period of 18 months of traineeship at newspapers, magazines etc. In other words, they have obtained a certain journalistic routine which makes them exciting and relevant to work with in this connection.
The course in which MEDIATOR took place was a one semester specialization in printed media. A course which among others includes the work of editorial secretaries, editing, lay-out, design and magazine news. During the entire course we to a great extent use Macintosh-computers in the daily work.
Of course, MEDIATOR is not a printed media – on the contrary – but for me there was no doubt that we placed the project in a natural place in the lessons, as the overall theme in the printed media lessons is the relation between form and content. This we would like to try to transfer to a new media.
Already, at this point it may be evident why our suggestion of an electronic newspaper differ substantially in a number of areas from the suggestions of others – but more about this later.
Preparation
It is obvious that when being asked to look into the crystal ball to see what the future might look like – you have to start by looking in the rear mirror: What has been done by others and why? What does experience show and what can we learn from it?
From the beginning it was determined that our work, for the moment, should be made public available via the Internet. This (undoubtedly) put a limit to the writer technical opportunities that we had – but it was also a part of my presentation to the students that they should not let their thoughts and ideas on future media be limited by present technology! This is an incredibly important point to the understanding of what we have been doing – and why.
It is obvious that should we have made a suggestion to a present electronic newspaper with up-to-date technology it would probably have looked different. A number of the reactions we received to our experiments also show that this prerequisite is not understood by everybody. Thus several suggested that we should work with smaller pictures – as the speed of transmission thereby would increase.
However, our starting point was not to be distracted by the fact that what is called the “electronic highway” is yet not a reality. If we understand highspeed highway to be a possibility for instant access to information – e.g. to transfer moving pictures to the least possible record speed – then we could at best be found technologically at the electronic bicycle path .
We became fascinated by the thought of creating a multimedia newspaper. There was just one question: What is a multi media newspaper? In recent years the term multimedia has been applied to almost anything. However, in journalistic and news reporting contexts real experiments are minimal.
In our sense of the word multi media means the use of several different media.
As journalists we know that each of the present media forms has its strengths as well as its weaknesses.
We are all aware that words/ letters are very useful when it comes to coherence. Graphical design presents another form of coherence. Sound is yet another implementing factor. Pictures can serve as documentation – and we are all aware of the fascination of motion pictures. The journalistic challenge in a multimedia newspaper will be to use the right elements for the right purpose – and I think this will take as long as it took tv to develop its own story techniques, instead of just being a radio with pictures as was the case in the early days of television.
Idea basis
In the preparational phase I spend a lot of time introducing the students to different forms of existing electronic media, net based as well as not net based.
Or in other words: Closed media and open media.
Today, the closed media is typically represented by CD-Rom. It is possible to gather considerable amounts of information on one single CD, – text, sound, pictures and film. Closed media can be currently up-dated as it is presently done with the encyclopedia where you can buy one new CD every year instead of buying 21 new books for the shelves.
The open media are those already available on the Internet. The readers are independent of time – if something new happens you can just up-date the news – and geographically independent. You are able to gather information from computers all over the world. By pressing one single button, you are able to shift from a document in Washington to a document in Australia and move on to a document at the Royal Library in Copenhagen in just a matter of a few seconds.
However, there is an enormous difference between the open and the closed media. A large number of extremely exciting CD-ROMs are available on the market. They represent a user language and a narrative technique which are easy to understand and which really makes use of the best in the multi media concept.
When we began our work with MEDIATOR there was not the same amount of electronic newspapers available on the Internet, just as the form language was not nearly as developed as it has become since, in less than a year. At that time a number of electronic media were available on the Internet – all filled with an unending flow of words. As pictures take much longer to transmit than words – many choose not to transmit them.
As journalists, we know that the most efficient kind of communication exists when form and context interact. A year ago it seemed that the Internet-based media separated these two aspects very efficiently.
To put it simply we wanted to take some of the most exciting elements from the closed electronic media and transfer them to our suggestion of an open media – knowing that the technology could not handle it and knowing that we would have to compromise a lot.
An important part of the preparation was as mentioned a substantial research of story techniques, partly on the Internet, partly on a number of CD-ROMs. A main view to our entire work was that if electronic news reporting should have any chance of developing into a mass media in the future we had to work much more with the form than anyone else did at that time.
The time which has passed since then has shown that many have had the same thoughts. There is still a long way to acquire the standard with which some CD-ROMs are working – but the development of a large number of Internet-subscribers move very fast.
The first thoughts
A substantial part of the work with KLIK-trial was idea development. At one and the same time it was the students’ strengths and weaknesses that net-based communication was a new area to them. They were able to think freely without being stringed by conventions and “that-is-not-the-way-we-usually-do-it”-objections.
On the other hand many of their ideas were simply not practically possible. But the basis was also the future. A number of the obvious deficiencies and dissatisfactions with software as well as hardware, which my students pointed out, might already be solved…
The students had, prior to their work on the computers with KLIK, taken down a policy for their product. Seen in the rear mirror it might seem frustrating that so many of their ideas could not be carried out in reality, but from a pedagogical point of view this part of the process was enourmously important. Thoughts were kept on paper – so by the end of the process it was possible to draw parallels between ideas and results. The results were, as is often seen in this sort of experiment, that the thoughts were better than the actual results.
The main thought behind KLIK was that the product should be much easier to grasp than net-based media – and it should contain a visual identity with regards to contents as well. At the editorial meetings we used oceans of time developing our own story technique which at one and the same time used the possibilities of the HTML-language in order to “link” various documents – and which at the same time did not over-link the stories so that the “readers” might disappear from KLIK into Cyberspace.
Many people find the link-technique – the non-lineary story form – as the best thing about net-based information. Personally, I see it practically the other way. Some times it seems that a continuous competition of having the largest possible amount of links in one’s texts is going on – with the result that no text is being read. This is exactly the biggest drawback of the net: the more links the more the “readers” are almost forced to KLIK on to something that might be more exciting, where you again will find references to something even more exciting and etc. etc.
It might be argued that it is funny and exciting to surfe at the net in this way – but basically it is an unprofessionel form of communication.
During the span of instruction which lay ahead of the MEDIATOR-project the students have constantly heard of the importance of creating communication where form and contents are interrelated. Design and lay-out are of utmost importance in printed communication – why should that not be the case in electronic communication? That was why it was so important to create a visual identity for KLIK as well.
Starting point
As mentioned the basis behind the idea of the electronic “newspaper” was written down prior to the experiment. With certain ommissions due to lack of space it looked like this:
If techniques allows we will bid users welcome with a jingle – a characteristic clarion call.
The first thing you will see is the front page where you will find three directions in the shape of pictures and headlines to the most important stories of the day. You can enter the stories directly by KLIKing on these directions. Further down in the picture you will see nine buttons with icons:
• Denmark
• The world
• Culture
• Job and money
• Life style
• Sports
• Entertainment
• Calender
• Forum.
The buttons lead you into the various sections of the newspaper.
The “calender” contains tv-programs, lists of cinema showings, lists of events, doctor- and pharmacist duties, in the entire country etc.
“Forum” consists of Letters to the Editor, questions to/from readers, classified advertisements, listed advertisements (travel agencies, service, subscriptions etc.).
If you press the newspaper-logo you will see a colophon with telephone-, fax-, and e-mail directories, editorial policy etc.
Target group
We aim at making a modern newspaper for the readers who presently read a general newspaper. But it must also appeal to the group that do not read the newspapers or has stopped reading news on paper because that media is indifferent to them, but who are still interested in news.
The reader is a private person. We do not report news which is targeted towards e.g.
the business life.
The reader do not necessarily have an education on a higher level (as the Internet user of today). Various types of readers must be able to use the media to the maximum limit. From the weak reader who needs stories to be told with pictures and speak to the heavy reader who like to view the source material after having read the news (e.g. a report).
As a basis the reader must be able to use the media on screen but he has the possibility of printing it out.
Graphic identity
Our newspaper must have a clear graphic identity.
• When you have KLIKed in on the menu “The world” on the front page, you see an index with the available stories. The somewhat boring picture is counter balanced by sweet music.
• There is also another way in which to seek information in the system: The search for free text. You can ask for a list of all the articles in which a certain word is present.
• In the menu you press the story “Sweden voted yes in the question of EU”, and will see HYSS-1 (Hey You See So 1). Here you will see a picture, a headline and an app. 8 line news resumé/introduction.
• HYSS consists of two choices. You can either KLIK back after the first page or proceed to HYSS-2. Here the story is elaborated on in the same way it is done in a short frontpage version (following the introduction) of a news story.
• In HYSS-2 you will also see a summary of all angles to the story. You choose “Danish comments”.
• Thus you will get an angle story. A small picture of the Prime Minister and a news story with his comments. A sound- or video icon will give you the opportunity to hear/see his comments.
• You can now choose to go back to HYSS-2 or press the Further Information button. Then you will get the next angle story in the order priorited by the editorial office. The single angles will then function as a space paragraph passage in a long story.
• In HYSS-1 you may also choose to proceed to another HYSS-1 page concerning another subject within your menu choice. In this way you can acquire a total presentation of all the short versions of a piece of news.
• In HYSS-1 you may also choose to press the video- or photo button and instead have the story told in sound and pictures.Overall principles
The idea basis for the electronic newspaper ends with a description of the elements which according to the students make the newspaper easier to use than other offers on the Internet:
» • All stories and files are shown at one screen picture. You do not have to roll but to press on.
• No “blue” directions in the text itself that encourage zapping.
• However, it is not possible to link with lexical references – a geographic chart or a miniature biography.
• At the top of the page – over paragraph and picture – we refer to extra pictures, sound- and video files.
• At the bottom of the page – below the text – we refer to other angles to the story.
• References to places outside our newspaper are graphically marked. And when you press them, you will get a sound file which informs you that you are now entering cyberspace.
• We like to avoid references inside the references. Where a chain of screen pictures are interlinked in the same story you will end at the starting point (the pearl row principle). Either when you have gone through the entire chain or when you have decided to jump off somewhere in the middle of the chain.
• At the bottom of the page you can also select to return to the front page; to the menu of the area in which you presently are (e.g. sports); to the menu of all angles on the story; to the next story on that subject (More information- button); and finally to the next short form story in the same menu.
• The pages may fall in graphical appeal as you move inwards. But there has to be a red line all through the story – e.g. in the shape of a small picture at the top. The codeword is “Coherence between form and contents”.«
An important detail when it comes to the coherence between form and contents: The software typically used on World Wide Web lets it be up the user to define which fonts, screen pictures etc. to use.
Therefore, the students have imagined that by subscribing to the “newspaper” you receive a software package which support the newspaper – and which is presented on the reader’s screen in such a way that the message will be the same for sender and receiver. That is the window size on the screen, fonts, colours etc.
In that connection I think it is worth noticing that more and more WWW-subscribers now work with graphical solutions on their application sheets where it clearly is the sender who defines what the message should look like.
The Product
How was the product? Of course it was not nearly as good as the intentions were. And there are numerous good explanations for this: lack of time, lack of ressources, lack of technical possibilities etc.
But we tried. And seen in the rear mirror I think that a number of the stories published worked very well.
The electronic newspaper was available at the Internet in a period of a few weeks. Of course the interest shown and the response given was biggest in the short intensive period, where a current up-date of the news took place. But also in the immediate period after, we received a number of inquiries and reactions from persons who had been in contact with our product – persons placed various places in the world such as; California, England, Japan, Italia and Canada.
As mentioned a few people suggested that we work with smaller pictures – mostly conditioned by the speed or lack of speed with which they could communicate with the net.
But apart from this reactions were mostly positive – among others from a Swede in Canada who was very enthusiastic about our coverage of the Swedish EU-vote. The picture coverage of the Canadian media of that event had not been exactly stunning…
Conclusions
On the background of the experiment with KLIK the students made a number of conclusions themselves – and many of those I completely agree to. The technological development speeds ahead in these years. Television, radio, telephone, modem, computers, electronic games, encyclopedias – everything is melting together to create the new homealtar of information, whatever we name this new “gadget”.
Journalism aimed at this new media, is the journalism of the future. Today journalists are almost forced to take basis in a given media when they have a story to tell. However, the multimedia journalist of the future may choose exactly that or those forms which fit the story which he is telling in the best way – it may be speak, video, interviews with or without moving pictures, photo reportages, music, sound effects, graphics, info animations and various computer effects.
And no matter which shapes the journalists chooses they all have the unquestionable advantage that the receiver can hear, read, view and review the stories whenever he so wishes. This will consequently be a colossal challenge to the way in which we report tv news today, where the viewer has to sit for 30 minutes or an hour to see the one or two features that is worth viewing.
In a multimedia newspaper the user can see his choices on the screen and select the features which is of interest when he feels like viewing them!
An unambiguous conclusion from the students: The electronic newspaper shall also be lay-outed. If it is used as other than entertainment it must be possible to read larger pieces of text as well – and these are to be presented at least as professionally as in the newspapers and magasines we know today!
Another unambiguous conclusion: the electronic newspaper will have a far greater degree of inter activity than we know today. Partly in the shape of more and easier reactions from the users – partly because the journalists will have to accept that the users to a greater extent will combine their own newspaper.
This puts demands to the classification of the subjects (e.g. culture) and sub-subjects (e.g. litterature, lyrics, reviews or all three at once). In this way the user can quickly find whatever is of interest to him.
But the stories can also be classified from the way in which they are told – so the user who only feels like watching a video can avoid watching text and dead pictures.
In the more curious end you could also imagine that you define news as being positive or negative so that the user did not have to watch sad news. You could also imagine that you only subscribe to items in which you are interested – and only pay for the specific use of stories (news on demand).
Search for free text gives you the opportunity to find the stories of special interest to you – just as we are aware of the possibility for what you could call “reversed search for free text”. In this way the user can cleanse his newspaper for articles containing words such as war, violence, tax increase, hunger etc.
Finally, the students considered a number of different story techniques which might be time demanding but contain large possibilities, especially in an electronic multi media.
Multi media is as made for inter activity. One could for instance imagine a scenario – where the journalists supply the receivers with the same clues they got themselves in the “solving” of the case. Otherwise you could imagine reconstructions where the user is put in the place of the decision-maker – e.g. the Chief of Police, the Prime Minister etc.
Inspired by existing CD-ROMs the students also contemplated a model which might appeal to the younger target group: Instead of doing what the journalist usually do – make everything as accessible as possible – we could go the other way. Use the front page as some kind of computer game – before certain questions were solved you were not allowed access to the news of the day….!
The pedagogical
The Danish School of Journalim’s involvement in the MEDIATOR project had as mentioned two aspects , the journalistic aspect and the pedagogical aspect. I have already elaborated on the journalistic aspect, but I would like to give a final comment:
To me it is of the utmost importance that The Danish School of Journalism and similar institutions participate actively in projects like e.g. this one. It is our job to educate journalists etc. for the media of tomorrow. That is why it is important that we do not barricade ourselves and only observe what others are doing. We must be on the field and be active participants in the development of the media – and personally I think that we in a number of incidents shall participate actively and put our stigma on the development.
In some situations this can be done by including students in projects as in this case; in other cases it might be projects where the expertice that we have hopefully acquired throughout time, can be used to something sensible.
The pedagogical aspect of a project as MEDIATOR is to me as filled with perspectives as the journalistic one.
In the main part of my teaching I try to work with what is called a “process-oriented education”. That is, instead of working with details I work with entities and coherences. That is why I feel that a project like MEDIATOR was very appropriate in the connection in which I usually teach.
Of course you might ask: What have the students learned from participating in this project? and in a tight oldfashioned teaching aspect one could answer: nothing; they have not learned to put commaes, to write a certain kind of articles or become experts in HTML-programming – eventhough they did work quite a lot with exactly HTML-programming.
On the other hand, I will dare to claim that they have become wiser! And to me that is as important an element in adult teaching as the traditional teaching.
During this project the students have been forced to think of the reality in which they work today – and to put questionsmark to why they do what they do. And constantly to think about how communication and presentation could be better.
I think they have reached a number of thought-provoking conclusions to the piece of work. There can be many reasons for this but no matter what you might think of these conclusions I have no doubts as to the pedagogical value of the job:
The students have become much more conscious of the work as a journalist, of the work with target groups, of the work with various types of media – and I tell myself that the six who joined the experiment will have an advantage in a number of areas as compared to their fellow students/collegues. Because being a good journalist among other things depends exactly on the question whether you possess that conscioussness or not.
KLIK as instruction
The experiment itself of making the multi media newspaper KLIK stretched over just three weeks in the end of 1994. As a starting point I must say that this is of course much too little time if we should have fullfilled the ambitious goal of giving our bid for what an electronic newspaper could look like .
On the other hand the three weeks became an incredibly intensive period where you might put questionmarks to the result – but where the pedogogical result was close to perfect in my opinion.
Of course there were things which I would have planned differently if I was planning it today. But when you move into virgin country it is inevitable to take detours!
The course itself looked more or less like this:
For a month to a month and a half before the project period itself the students were concurrently with their regular classes introduced to the electronic world: CD-ROMs, Internet, the non-linear story technique etc.
This was introduced at several arrangements by me and the school’s library – and the students themselves took some time to find and get aquainted with the written as well as the electronic materials.
Then the intensive three weeks period followed, which was divided largely like this:
• The first week was used to get aquainted with the equipment, on which the electronic newspaper was produced, the available software, idea development, and to precise what kind of product the students wanted to create.o The second week was used to produce “articles” for the electronic newspaper, which, following a couple of days of pre-production were made publicly available at the Internet a couple of days into the week – and then currently up-dated.
• The third week was used to produce single stories, on gathering, on participating in an all-day-conference at The Danish School of Journalism, where the entire MEDIATOR project was introduced – and to write a longer report on the project period, thoughts and results.
Pedagogical conclusions
As mentioned there is a lot to be questioned at to the period as well as to the results. If the experiment was to be repeated there are some things I would like to change:
First and foremost the students found it frustrating that they had to learn a whole new world and line of thoughts at one and the same time, while they were developing a new media – concurrently with learning an entirely different form of technology than they were used to work with.
No doubt about it the SUN-computers that were available to us were excellent – but today I am convinced that we would have reached further if we had founded the work in a computer platform on which the students were already confident beforehand (that is a Macintosh, which is the computer we use at The Danish School of Journalism). Else it would have been necessary to use considerable longer time on the basal teaching in the new computers and software available.
A number of technical things could have been different – and due to the speed of development since then it would have been much easier to carry out the project today:
It would have been an advantage with a very simple and clear HTMT-editor so that the students from the start could have concentrated on the contents – and not be forced to think in codes etc. while they were writing their stories.
It would have been an advantage with a platform that gave more lay-out possibilities than the HTML, level 1 (and within this area a lot has happened since 1994).
It would also have been an advantage if we to a larger extent could have experimented with moving pictures – and with the special multi media story technique where different forms of expressions are mixed.
This last part of the project was the part we worked least upon. And this is the part that to me will be the decisive one in the development of journalism in the years to come. How do we tackle the challenge it will be when all our existing media melts together? How do we secure that people get a proper level of information – without everything vanishing into games, entertainment and net surfing without contents?
There will probably be a number of answers to this question in the year ahead – and there is hardly one of them that will be entirely correct.
I think it is important that we as professionel mediators enter this job so that it is not left to computer men, university men or to the entertainment industry.
And I do think I can promise that The Danish School of Journalism is ready to enter into new areas of cooperation in this development. Because it is important both to ourselves and to our present and future students.
Finally, a single note: No matter how many projects of this kind that will be made there will always be basis for more. Be it big expensive projects as MEDIATOR or small completed courses in a teaching environment.
Because the exciting aspect of future is that there are no patent solutions as to what it will look like. No matter how much we predict the future there will always be another future waiting for us around the next corner.
I can highly recommend the pedagogical form which sets creativity and fantasi free – whether in a teachnig situation or in e.g. a journalistic place of work: What will the future look like? And what would it look like if we could decide ourselves?
Århus, October 1995
Flemming Sørensen