Brindle Media

Russian journalist, Vladimir Abarinov reports for Radio Liberty, aka svobodanews.ru from his base in Saratoga Springs, New York. Our daughters attended the same school this year which is how Vladimir and I became acquainted.

Apparently, communications theorist Marshall McLuhan, the man who’s most famous observation is “The medium is the message”, is quite revered in Russia. Earlier this month, to mark the centennial of McLuhan’s birth, Abarinov asked if he might interview me about broadcasting and social media in America. What follows is the Google English’s translation of a portion of that interview from the original Russian transcript. Idiomatically, it’s a bit challenging, but….

Brindle: I truly admire the social networks and new opportunities arising with the advent of Internet radio and podcasts, which are now You can listen to the car dashboard. For me it is, in essence, a continuation and extension of what I have done before, but there is also a challenge. If you do business information, you can no longer be only newspaper people. or just a radio journalist, broadcaster or just. You should work on all platforms, in all guises at once incorporated into a product of sound, video and text. In addition, the audience is now more control over the content, it has become more active and more demanding. Those who are accustomed to the traditional one-way communication with the public, it is very difficult to restructure in this regard.

Abarinov Vladimir: We met with Ron because our daughter Mary and Sarah attend the same private boarding school for girls. Once we returned from school, and Ron complained to me that Sarah has blocked his access to his Facebook page”.” I replied that I have not blocked, but sometimes I can hardly understand what is written there. Our daughter while sitting in the back, listened and laughed. Is technology taken away from us our children?

Brindle: I do not think. Kids always find a way to stand apart from their parents. It is growing, and they want better relations with peers than with mom and dad. So they put us to the barriers. When I was in the same age as I did the same thing, just different. I do not think that technology hinder our communication with children, to me they, conversely, help. I will find something of interest in the network, showing her daughter with her and we discuss this information. It is useless to resist – you need to use technology as an opportunity for contact with children. But I recognize that they must also assert their independence. And then there is the risk that the information they publish to social networks, gain access someone else, so they limit their social circle friends whom they trust. Remember Congressman Wiener, who sent a””Twitter their intimate pictures. Now to leak so easily …

You can read the a transcript of the entire article here
http://www.svobodanews.ru/content/transcript/24269535.html