How the cloud is re-shaping journalism

At the heart of human DNA is an insatiable appetite for telling stories.

Whether we’re doing it to entertain, educate, inform, or forewarn – it’s been happening for years, since the dawn of human civilisation.

But when you think about it, there’s one constant behind the evolution of storytelling; technology. From the unveiling of the printing press, to Marconi broadcasting the first long-wave radio signals – all the way through to the rise of online and on mobile media consumption – technology has enabled us to make sharing our stories easier and more efficient.

For many, the world-wide-web and advent of social media has been the single biggest technological advancement in the art of telling stories, but it seems we’re on the cusp of another fundamental shift, something that’s allowing journalists and writers to tell stories from places they’d never have been able to access before.

The shift is called mobile journalism, and it’s a trend being powered by the cloud. A pioneer of mobile journalism and organiser of Mojocon, Glen Mulchahy explains: “Mobile technology is truly revolutionising journalism as we know it. By using cloud technologies to share and edit captured content, fast, and no matter where a writer is in the world, we have seen a genuine change in the way stories are told and delivered to audiences.”

We recently told the story of how Nick Garnett used Dropbox to give the world the real story of the Ebola crisis. According to him, “When you think of the old days of actually sending files from one place to another, the transformation is astonishing – it’s completely changed the way we are working.”

And today marks the start of Mojocon 2017, the third annual event of its kind, and something Dropbox is proud to be supporting. Hundreds of journalists will be heading to Galway for the four day conference where they will hear about mobile journalism, mobile content creation, mobile photography and new technology all in one event. And the theme this year, unsurprisingly, is how technology is re-shaping journalism.

We’ll also be there exploring the event for ourselves, uncovering new stories to help celebrate the storytellers, and the way they’re revolutionising the media production process.

After all, as Glen, organiser of Mojocon 2017 says: “We are living in an age where people want real-time news at the touch of a button. Mobile and cloud technologies are allowing journalists to update their audience with front-line stories and content that can be updated instantly as news happens.”

Join the conversation at #mojocon , and tell us your story by emailing.