Make way for the unwashed and unworthy
| Date | 01 April 1996 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb045493 |
| Published date | 01 April 1996 |
| Pages | 369-371 |
| Author | Robert A. Duffy |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Terra inter/media
Make way
for the unwashed
and unworthy
Robert
A.
Duffy
Strategic
Communications,
9200 Old
Annapolis
Road,
Suite
203,
Columbia,
MD
21045,
USA
BOBDUFFY@strcom.com
http://www.strom.com
The Los
Angeles Dodgers have
a
World Wide Web site.
On
its
face,
this
news may not strike you
as
particularly significant, especially if
you're not a fan of
the
predominantly New World (cum Asian-Pacific) sport of
baseball. But for this observer of the digital media universe, the recent debut of the
Dodger Web space (http://www.dodgers.com) resonates with an unintended sym-
bolism that has
little to do
with
the
sports scene per
se.
It's
a
most instructive site to
visit, because it illustrates
a
spate of new influences from popular
and
commercial
culture that, thanks to the Web, are poised to bluster in rather boisterously on the
staid realms
of online knowledge
and
information management.
Information specialists have good
reason not
to
ignore
the
Dodgers' mas-
sive new outpost on the Internet, or the
unabashedly commercial energies that
inspire it, or the seemingly fathomless
gigabytes of trivia that the site mar-
shals.
The Dodgers, like the flush
sponsors of many other deeply-capi-
talised commercial spaces on the Web,
are providing a revealing glimpse into
certain complicating elements lurking
in the future of librarians, researchers
and business information specialists.
With their debut on the Web the
Dodgers have taken on a new
role:
on-
line multimedia
publishers.
This is less
of a departure from past form than a
closing of the loop, an Internet-en-
abled consolidation of Dodger busi-
ness and communications activities.
Along with most professional sports
teams today (especially in the US), the
Dodgers are also broadcasters and
print publishers of long
standing.
They
package and purvey live radio and TV
transmissions of their games, pre- and
post-game
shows,
video compilations,
specialty magazines, fan programmes,
media guides and so on.
They're merchandisers too. They
licence and help sell all manner of im-
printed goods, mostly casual fashion
items like caps, jackets and T-shirts.
You can live in Budapest, Cape Town,
Shanghai or Shangri-La and chances
are you see the Dodgers' cursive logo-
type frequently, not to mention those
of the scores of other North American
pro teams (need
I
say Chicago Bulls?).
In a nutshell, the Dodger organisa-
tion epitomises the successful mid-
sized entertainment/communications
enterprise of the late 20th century: op-
portunistic, responsive to customer
needs,
simultaneously local and
global, diversified in both products
and media penetration, tuned to many
marketing channels, and, now, online.
The motive: profit
At this point you may well be saying
that this is all about money and busi-
ness,
not the management of informa-
tion and knowledge. To an extent
you're right. The site's commercial
impact clearly comes first in the hearts
of Dodger management. All the pre-
dictable commerce-reinforcing ele-
ments are here in spades: game and
broadcast schedules, ticket informa-
tion, an online gift shop, a kids' sec-
tion, plus the obligatory cornucopia of
way-cool Web effects — after
all,
this
is a California-based site. So if you
have the leisure and the right plug-in
helper applications on your end, you
can enjoy video clips, streamed audio,
animations and a 3D tour
in
which you
get to explore not just the stadium but
the honest-to-goodness actual office
of 68-year-old Dodger Manager (head
coach) Tommy Lasorda.
Still, there's a consistent emphasis
here on specialist knowledge. The site
is encyclopaedically aswarm with
Dodgeriana, which
I
hope a quick scan
will suffice to communicate. You will
find digital versions of the Dodgers'
print publications, including monthly
magazines for the public plus the sea-
sonal (and more data-intensive) guides
issued for the working press. There is
also a number of segments here that
typify a new Web-engendered brand
of content: background coverage of
corporate goings-on. In the bygone
days of print hegemony, this was an art
form confined mainly to typescript
and issued exclusively (like the news
release, its more straightforward sib-
ling) to
working journalists and securi-
ties analysts. Now, with the advent of
the Web, it has metamorphosed into
digital multimedia form and, fortified
with 'reversioned' material lifted from
corporate print
sources,
is
beginning to
grow like the Blob on some corporate
Web servers.
The Electronic Library,
Vol.
14,
No.
4,
August 1996 369
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