Mastering Digital Media: Essential Courses for Modern Media Professional

Digital transformation of the media has enabled new multimedia forms, integrating what used to be discrete forms, even genres, of storytelling. Blogs are an example of how storytelling has expanded into more direct narrations.

Digital transformation has become a buzzword, but the term is well worth the popularity of the activity. The transition to digital for print and audiovisual media in granular terms—web-based content, digital cameras and post-production processes, etc.—began more than two decades ago. It was by no means merely a technological change, as it carried with it such functional morphing as faster pace of storytelling, the advanced use of graphics-based storytelling, and the various features of interactivity.

However, this transition is hardly complete. As new and emerging technology continues to arrive at regular intervals, more features are being added. We often hear people saying “but storytelling remains the same”. This is debatable: Digital transformation of the media has enabled new multimedia forms, integrating what used to be discrete forms, even genres, of storytelling. Blogs are an example of how storytelling has expanded into more direct narrations of personalised experiences and interpretations; moreover, they illustrate how storytelling has become a part of our everyday life, having demystified the aura around the art.

This is nothing new, of course. The arrival of photographic cameras in the mid-19th century was met similar excitement and rejection as it mechanically reproduced art and made high art lose its aura. With the arrival of Artificial Intelligence (AI), digital media is poised for another change, although at the moment it would seem that the marketing gurus have all the advantage and the others are scrambling around, forcing themselves to forage for some new benefit from this exciting new technology, not wishing to be left behind by their peers.

Digital media offers a variety of roles for media professionals. Influencers harness social media platforms to build brands and engage with large audiences, while media marketing and media management professionals use data analytics and algorithms to optimize content creation and distribution. Computational media professionals create interactive media products such as games and news and in general develop emerging-technology adaptations in the media. AI news specialists employ artificial intelligence to automate news reporting and personalize content for readers. Immersive filmmakers utilize virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to create engaging immersive storytelling experiences. Interactive game designers produce interactive digital experiences. Digital PR experts navigate the online media environment to manage public relations and brand reputation effectively. Additionally, roles like social media strategists, content marketers, and digital ad specialists are crucial in crafting and executing comprehensive digital campaigns. This diverse array of roles highlights the evolving landscape of digital media and its expanding opportunities for media professionals.

Digital skilling is important for not only media professionals—an endeavour that most media production organisations have taken on a war footing—but for media users too. Smartphone users are not merely consumers, they are also producers. We may call them “prosumers”. There are several tools-y skills that every digital creator—whether it is at the level of a professional influencer or a casual blogger—must know. These range from video creation to uploading content online and making it “SEO-friendly” by adding tags and various forms of keywords. Analytics is another useful tool for the slightly more serious-minded users, and is a critical tool for students of media, since most of them will end up doing some sort of analytics in their initial jobs.

Moreover, digital media implies the use of multiple media. This means that legacy media professionals are frantically arming themselves with skills they never thought they had—camera, editing, graphic design, creating podcasts, CMS, clever headline-writing, and much more. But are our new media professionals learning the many strengths of the legacy media? A feature of digital media is the sense of urgency and production of volumes. Investigative journalism has been a victim of this pace, as, indeed, has the sense of detail itself. Remember I mentioned earlier how storytelling itself is changing at the hands of technology users. This would be an example of the not-so-glorious kind.

Data is at the centre of all digital media and churning it to make sense of it and converting numbers into insights is important not just to understand the consumer better, but also to tell “data stories”. However, data mining should never mean that data should become the fulcrum of the most important function of mediated communication—telling a good story. That is why our scramble for change-for-change’s-sake often ends up getting rejected by the end user. On the other hand, digital media has the capability to churn out so much content that only the loudest, the starkest, the most dramatic catches attention. Again, future media students must question the industry on these practices, because they could be self-destructive in the anxiety for short-term gains.

AI newsrooms may be a reality in many organisations, but a new report shows that people at large are quite sceptical about what is perceived as machine-intervened content. AI art is already a “thing”, and its authorship, like in digital art, is under a big question. These challenges perhaps look either trivial or secondary to purebred technologists, but they are real. Indeed, technocrats’ big challenge today is to “humanise” technological interventions. User interface and user experience (UI/UX) are critical examples. While dealing with machines, we cannot forget that the end user is human. Investment in human psychology and behaviour is not only needed—it is critical.

There are several more obvious things a digital citizen, and more so, a digital media professional, must adapt to and adopt. Among them, readiness to learn new things tops the list. Seemingly simple, it is a nightmare for many people, especially those who have been accustomed to and are convinced by a certain process that yields certainty of outcomes. Operating in grey areas is not our forte, but it seems that the digital world has dragged in the power of uncertainty. Even information is not spared—whether or not a piece of news is real has itself become uncertain. Physical networks—like the human thought behind machine intervention—are becoming increasingly vital to our operation. Collaboration and learning through mutual validation have become routinely more salient to the process of our meaning-making of our world.

The peril of over-adoption almost always lies in ethics. Think about Oppenheimer’s dilemma after the Manhattan Project and the destruction of whole cities from the abuse of available science. Technological abuse is similar.  Ethical competency is already emerging as a necessary component of a media professional’s operational capability. While journalists are trained to operate in ethical ways, it seems that the pressures of digitalisation are so powerful that they compel unethicality. As a result, more news consumers than ever before—in some countries, more than 50 percent of the people—do not trust their media, thus endangering the very existence of the sources of information with whom we have a social contract!

Conclusion:

What all this implies is that the journey of digital transformation in media is far from complete. As new technologies emerge and integrate into the fabric of media production, the landscape continues to evolve, offering both opportunities and challenges. The advent of AI, immersive technologies, and data-driven storytelling has expanded the capabilities of media professionals, allowing for innovative and engaging content. However, the rapid pace of change has also highlighted the need for ethical considerations and digital literacy among both creators and consumers. While digital tools enhance storytelling, they also bring complexities that require a balance between technological advancement and human-centric approaches. The future of media hinges on the ability to adapt, learn, and navigate the ethical implications of a digital world, ensuring that the core essence of storytelling remains intact while embracing the transformative potential of new technologies.

By: Dr. Shashidhar Nanjundaiah, Dean School of Media, Mahindra University