Blockchain technology, known as the Internet revolution, was born as a proposal to improve the current financial system and make it more transparent, secure and reliable. However, this technology is also bringing its potential qualities to other sectors of society, including journalism and social communication.
Since technological advances, journalism is one of the professional activities that has best adapted to new developments. The innumerable number of digital information portals that exist today, and the increasingly frequent use of social networks by journalists, who seek to express their opinions and findings to the whole society through these means, make very clear the fundamental role that technology and the Internet age play in this laudable work. However, although technological development allows information to be increasingly accessible to everyone, it also allows false and misleading information to be spread, often without any kind of control. Therefore, there is a need to generate new methodologies that guarantee the reliability and credibility of the information we consume daily.
This is how the authors of the book «Blockchain and Journalism: How Blockchain Will Change the Media», saw a unique opportunity in blockchain, which will transform the way information is disseminated in today's media. With the implementation of this technology, both media outlets and journalists can guarantee absolute transparency and reliability in the information we see and read every day.
This book is a work created by Joaquín Marqués-Pascual, Marçal Sintes-Olivella, Antoni Maria Piqué i Fernández, Albert Sáez Casas, Elena Yeste Piquer and Enric Xicoy i Comas, who studied and researched in depth the possibilities that this technology can offer to journalism and the media in general.
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Blockchain in journalism and communication
The potential qualities of blockchain technology, which have been studied and analyzed within the financial system since its creation in 2009, have captivated many other sectors of society, which see in this technology an opportunity to radically change the way they operate, making their processes more effective and efficient.
Journalism is no exception to this reality. For some time now, experts have been devising ways to ensure transparency and reliability in the transmission of information, because it is no secret that the ease of access that exists today to the Internet offers little resistance to those who seek to manipulate data, impersonate identities or spread false information. For this reason, the authors of “Blockchain and Journalism: How the blockchain will change the media” considered it appropriate to study the potential that blockchain technology could bring to the journalistic profession.
Although it is not a miracle technology or a magic formula that will solve all the problems of this industry, blockchain does offer the possibility of creating new solutions that allow for significantly improving the functions of journalism and the way in which it is developed.
More security and confidence
Marçal Sintes Olivella, one of the authors and coordinators of this volume, explained during a interview who believes that this technology has the potential to “facilitate change towards improving journalism” and revolutionize the way in which this activity has traditionally been carried out.
The implementation of blockchain in communication and information transmission can facilitate the verification of the origin and sources of information, making the activity of communicating more secure and reliable, as expressed by Alex Preukschat, coordinator of the 'Blockchain Book' during the First International Meeting on Blockchain and Journalism, which was held in Madrid, Spain in 2017. During this meeting, renowned journalists and international organizations explained how blockchain was making its way into the field of journalism.
A Spanish version
The idea of capturing all the potential that blockchain holds for journalism arose at the Ramon Llull University in Barcelona, specifically at the Blanquerna Faculty of Communication and International Relations, as Sintes Olivella indicated during the interview.
“We thought it was worthwhile to compile what we had worked on until then in a book that addresses the different aspects of the issue. The book was published in Catalan by my Faculty, the Blanquerna Faculty of Communication and International Relations (Ramon Llull University), in 2019, and in Spanish in the prestigious Dircom collection of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia, in Spanish), in 2020.”
With the premiere and launch of “Blockchain and Journalism: How the Blockchain Will Change the Media” in its Spanish version, the entire Spanish-speaking population will now be able to learn about the changes that this technological milestone can bring about in this important work.
This book addresses topics of great interest related to the blockchain-journalism duo, highlighting the potential of this technology to help effectively combat disinformation and the spread of fake news, as well as protect and guarantee the copyright or intellectual property of journalists or media outlets. Likewise, the authors of the book point out that blockchain, thanks to its decentralized structure, has the potential to help society avoid censorship often imposed by governments and large corporations. Finally, although the benefits of this technology in this field are many, it will take some time to see significant changes in the production and dissemination of news.
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