About

The BlackDoor MediaComm blog examines issues regarding strategic communications and emerging media. Each week, we  delve into topics that leaders in media and communications grapple with each day, areas such as: the diffusion of innovations; interpersonal influence; opinion leadership; social media; communication with government groups; message development & placement; media strategies; and the future in strategic communication.
As a longtime journalist and communications professional who’s studying for a master’s degree in Strategic Communication, I think we have fascinating topics to discuss. But these subjects are vitally important for everyone, even those who don’t realize it and don’t have professional/academic interests in the matter. 

 The world of journalism and communication underwent rapid change in the decade preceding November 2016. Since then, alteration has occurred at warp speed, leading to warped perceptions of truth, reality, accuracy and credibility. 

 Our democracy is at risk if we can’t get a handle on those pillars.    
To follow the conversation, please bookmark blackdoormediacomm.blogspot.com. I hope to share what I’m learning in my classes at Troy University, my observations as a media consumer, and what I’ve gathered through working at five newspapers and two nonprofit organizations since 1985. Thanks for reading!

 Deron Snyder

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Without vision, proceed at your own peril

Image
Photo by  David Beale  on  Unsplash By Deron Snyder -- "Where there is no vision, the people perish" Proverbs 29:18. Just like people, organizations are at risk of perishing when guidance and direction are insufficient. Picking out prime examples is easy, considering how hindsight is 20-20. But perhaps no company proves the point more convincingly than Blockbuster. By 1993, the video rental chain had more than 3,400 stores and was encouraging consumers to “make it a Blockbuster night.” But the leaders' FutureVision googles were faulty and led to failure in navigating an oncoming tidal wave that turned the company’s fortunes upside down. A June 1999 article in the Chicago Sun-Times asked readers to “imagine a Blockbuster night without Blockbuster, a time when no video store will ever slap you with a late fee or fine you for failing to rewind. Because in this world, there are no videos, only home computers.”   In that world, Amazon ...
Read more

Future of media & communications? Let's go!

Image
Photo by Jeremy Galliani on Unsplash By Deron Snyder If printed newspapers have lost me as a customer, I fear that their prospects for developing future customers is between infinitesimal and nonexistent. I still love newspapers, which have been part of my life since elementary school, when I devoured the New York Daily News every day (as a sports fan, backwards) and later added the New York Post to my reading list. During visits back home after leaving the city to attend Howard University and start my journalism career, I’d stop at newsstands and purchase the aforementioned papers as well as USA Today, The New York Times and New York Newsday. Nothing quite compares to flipping through the pages of a “daily miracle,” the term some journalists use to describe a newspaper. I’m convinced that the physical act, the tactile experience, provides some sort of subconscious mental reward, like the release of endorphins during exercise. Sipping coffee, scanning the headline...
Read more

Just for clicks

Image
Photo by  Fancycrave  on  Unsplash By Deron Snyder So much content. So many eyeballs. If the former can catch a glance from the latter, a wonderful and meaningful encounter could ensue.  They even might wind up meeting on a regular basis and spending quality time together. That would make content ecstatic, because one its greatest fear is dying of loneliness. So, it attempts to put itself in front of eyeballs as many ways as possible, but it’s really helpless after that point. Eyeballs have all the power and call all the shots, with no shortage of content to choose from. Nonetheless, some content wants to be picky, wants to be selected by the particular type of eyeballs it believes it’s   made for. Other content couldn’t care less about which eyeballs it hooks up with; the more the merrier.   It doesn’t want to appear cheap and easy, but … its often perceived like that anyway. Such is life as 2020 approaches, with content at every turn on m...
Read more