Imagine a world without journalism. Without reporters to interrogate the flow of events, and media platforms to spread their stories far and wide. How would this transform your experience of the world? How would it change you? Imagine life without any sense of what is happening in the world—without an understanding of our common moment, and the common dramas uniting cities, nations, and the planet. Imagine life without a culture of inquiry and interrogation, without provocations, discussions and debates about the meaning of passing events, without a chance to form an opinion on what is happening today.
Imagine life without any perception of different points of view. How would you see the fault-lines in society if journalism did not reveal political differences and the constant struggle for justice and rights? Journalism makes the invisible visible. It may be possible to imagine a world, but it is impossible to imagine our world, without it.
Now, imagine a world without your smartphone. This device is everywhere and everyone seems to have one. Billions in use and embedded within our contemporary culture as an integral part of everyday life. Your phone provides an instant connection to e-mail, social networks and live TV. This device has rapidly developed from being an adjunct accessory into an essential tool and extension of self. Today, the smartphone has been embraced by, and is a witness to, a new age of journalism. The device has had a profound impact on the way we access and interact with information, as well as how it can be generated and disseminated worldwide.
With a rapidly evolving media landscape, the digital era is revolutionizing the production, distribution and consumption of news. By doing so it continues to disrupt and transform how journalism operates as an industry, is taught as a discipline, and perceived as a public institution.
We invite you to explore the role of the smartphone in these changing dynamics, as both a catalyst and a cause, a blessing and a curse. Join us for Breaking News? how the smartphone changed journalism.
Join us in this discussion which incorporates multiple perspectives from across theory and practice, and contribute to its open and exploratory conversations. This exhibition encourages you to interrogate and engage—as consumers of news, journalism professionals, students—and provide your thoughts on journalism and its role as an evolving expression of the human desire for knowledge and truth.
Breaking News? How the smartphone changed journalism is accompanied by an illustrated publication. Part of our Voices and Conversations series this publication features contributions by journalists, technology engineers, media researchers and digital creatives, amongst others. Available in Arabic and English in the Northwestern Qatar Bookstore and online.
(156 pages, soft cover; 39 images, full color; QAR 100)
