MediaShift
Revamping J-Schools in Australia to Bring in \'Citizens Agenda\'Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:01:27 -0800 - Education content on MediaShift is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. As Australian democracy hangs in the balance, and with the outcome of the August 21 national election unlikely to be resolved for weeks, I\'m considering the implications for journalism education -- and how we can invent new models for political reporting. I am a former Australian Broadcasting Corporation political journalist who now teaches journalism in at the University of Canberra, which is situated just down the road from Australia\'s national parliament. Parliament House is home to the Canberra Press Gallery, the Holy Grail of Australian political journalism. I made a small but successful attempt at innovating political reporting in the classroom through the employment of Twitter as a student-reporting platform in a Canberra regional election in 2008. But it\'s time my school, which bills itself as Australia\'s \"Capital University,\" embarked on a political journalism project that marries journalism students and media-active citizenry with industry partners, new media players and civic agencies. Such an approach could enable the implementation of a citizen-informed editorial agenda; the engagement of a now essential social media strategy; and the enhancement of industry partner\'s political coverage, with the social objective of enabling participatory democracy. It should also provide an opportunity for academic research, so that the outcomes can be appropriately measured and academically published, as well as being reported for mass consumption through a variety of media. Superficial Coverage Problematic Australian political reporting, which became a theme of its own during the heavily stage-managed campaign, has been cited as one of the causes of this historic result: The first hung Parliament since World War II, and the upending of Australia\'s entrenched, highly combative, two-party democracy. Journalists have been accused of producing superficial stories that were heavily influenced by polls and the major parties\' political agendas, but light on critique and context. Citizen journalists bit back on blogs and Twitter, telling journalists to lift their game. They complained about Press Gallery obsessions with predictions, personalities and political processes at the expense of policies. They also cited the impact of spin and campaign stage management on editorial agendas at the expense of independent, inquiring journalism as evidence of the need for changing practice. They asked why Australia\'s increasingly costly involvement in the war in Afghanistan wasn\'t probed during the campaign, and they wanted to know why both major parties virtually ignored climate change. This public critique of professional political journalism provoked defensive reactions from some reporters and triggered a vigorous Twitter debate on political journalism between the Fourth Estate and the New Estate. Witness the below exchange between a journalist and one of my colleagues at the university: Four independent Members of Parliament, bent on upending the Oz political landscape, are likely to hold the Balance of Power in the new government -- and they\'ve already taken aim at the Fourth Estate for its failures and apparent determination to maintain the status quo. In a National Press Club (NPC) address last week, one MP, Tony Windsor, challenged the journalists present, saying, \"if you people are sick of the nonsense, then promote some of [our] concepts.\" Another, Rob Oakeshott, pointed to what he sees as the essence of the problem. \"In focusing so heavily on the [Prime Minister], the cabinet and the polls ... we have lost the focus on the local member,\" he told the NPC. And with it, the local community. A challenge NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen visited Australia in the middle of the election campaign to speak at a national conference of journalists. He was intrigued to find what he calls horse race journalism being practiced on the Australian election campaign trail. He revived his alternative model for political reporting driven by the \"citizens agenda\" during his highly publicized visit. He also proposed a new role of media outlet as \"explainer\" for the national public broadcaster, ABC. U.S. political journalist John Nichols was another keynote speaker at the conference. His rousing speech invoked Finley Peter Dunne (\"afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted\") and pointed to the risk that spin increasingly amplifies the voices of the powerful and threatens journalists\' capacity to speak truth to power. It made me feel like I\'d attended a revival meeting at the Church of Journalism. Rosen\'s practical challenge and Nichols\' call to faith focused my mind on the role that journalism education might play in reforming political reporting in Australia. Key targets for an overhaul of political journalism in the Australian setting are: The missing \"citizens agenda\" and active engagement with citizen journalists. The absence of explanatory reporting and a preference for inflammatory tabloid-style political reporting. The resort to the defense of objectivity in the face of political deceit. The concentration of political reporting on the national capital and the parliament, and the insistence on focusing campaign coverage on the traveling shows staged by the leaders of the two main political parties, Labor and the Liberal National Coalition. Barrukka Project There has been only limited innovation in the sphere of community and industry-partnered journalism school projects around political journalism in Australia. The best of these was YouDecide2007 project, which sought to explore the role of social media and citizen journalism in partnership with the secondary Australian public broadcaster, the multilingual SBS. This early and very successful research-driven project did not, however, systematically involve journalism students, nor did it directly feed back into journalism training. In fact, most Australian journalism schools don\'t teach political journalism as a genre, and the training that does occur tends to simply model entrenched industry patterns. Here\'s what I propose: A multi-partnered, citizen-activated journalism project based at the University of Canberra in the lead up to the next national election (which could happen swiftly unless a stable government can be es...
Education content on MediaShift is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com.
As Australian democracy hangs in the balance, and with the outcome of the August 21 national election unlikely to be resolved for weeks, I\'m considering the implications for journalism education -- and how we can invent new models for political reporting.
I am a former Australian Broadcasting Corporation political journalist who now teaches journalism in at the University of Canberra, which is situated just down the road from Australia\'s national parliament. Parliament House is home to the Canberra Press Gallery, the Holy Grail of Australian political journalism.
I made a small but successful attempt at innovating political reporting in the classroom through the employment of Twitter as a student-reporting platform in a Canberra regional election in 2008. But it\'s time my school, which bills itself as Australia\'s \"Capital University,\" embarked on a political journalism project that marries journalism students and media-active citizenry with industry partners, new media players and civic agencies.
Such an approach could enable the implementation of a citizen-informed editorial agenda; the engagement of a now essential social media strategy; and the enhancement of industry partner\'s political coverage, with the social objective of enabling participatory democracy. It should also provide an opportunity for academic research, so that the outcomes can be appropriately measured and academically published, as well as being reported for mass consumption through a variety of media.
Problematic Australian political reporting, which became a theme of its own during the heavily stage-managed campaign, has been cited as one of the causes of this historic result: The first hung Parliament since World War II, and the upending of Australia\'s entrenched, highly combative, two-party democracy.
Journalists have been accused of producing superficial stories that were heavily influenced by polls and the major parties\' political agendas, but light on critique and context. Citizen journalists bit back on blogs and Twitter, telling journalists to lift their game.
They complained about Press Gallery obsessions with predictions, personalities and political processes at the expense of policies. They also cited the impact of spin and campaign stage management on editorial agendas at the expense of independent, inquiring journalism as evidence of the need for changing practice. They asked why Australia\'s increasingly costly involvement in the war in Afghanistan wasn\'t probed during the campaign, and they wanted to know why both major parties virtually ignored climate change. This public critique of professional political journalism provoked defensive reactions from some reporters and triggered a vigorous Twitter debate on political journalism between the Fourth Estate and the New Estate. Witness the below exchange between a journalist and one of my colleagues at the university:
Four independent Members of Parliament, bent on upending the Oz political landscape, are likely to hold the Balance of Power in the new government -- and they\'ve already taken aim at the Fourth Estate for its failures and apparent determination to maintain the status quo. In a National Press Club (NPC) address last week, one MP, Tony Windsor, challenged the journalists present, saying, \"if you people are sick of the nonsense, then promote some of [our] concepts.\" Another, Rob Oakeshott, pointed to what he sees as the essence of the problem. \"In focusing so heavily on the [Prime Minister], the cabinet and the polls ... we have lost the focus on the local member,\" he told the NPC. And with it, the local community.
NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen visited Australia in the middle of the election campaign to speak at a national conference of journalists. He was intrigued to find what he calls horse race journalism being practiced on the Australian election campaign trail. He revived his alternative model for political reporting driven by the \"citizens agenda\" during his highly publicized visit. He also proposed a new role of media outlet as \"explainer\" for the national public broadcaster, ABC.
U.S. political journalist John Nichols was another keynote speaker at the conference. His rousing speech invoked Finley Peter Dunne (\"afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted\") and pointed to the risk that spin increasingly amplifies the voices of the powerful and threatens journalists\' capacity to speak truth to power. It made me feel like I\'d attended a revival meeting at the Church of Journalism.
Rosen\'s practical challenge and Nichols\' call to faith focused my mind on the role that journalism education might play in reforming political reporting in Australia. Key targets for an overhaul of political journalism in the Australian setting are:
There has been only limited innovation in the sphere of community and industry-partnered journalism school projects around political journalism in Australia. The best of these was YouDecide2007 project, which sought to explore the role of social media and citizen journalism in partnership with the secondary Australian public broadcaster, the multilingual SBS. This early and very successful research-driven project did not, however, systematically involve journalism students, nor did it directly feed back into journalism training. In fact, most Australian journalism schools don\'t teach political journalism as a genre, and the training that does occur tends to simply model entrenched industry patterns.
Here\'s what I propose: A multi-partnered, citizen-activated journalism project based at the University of Canberra in the lead up to the next national election (which could happen swiftly unless a stable government can be es...
Special Series: Beyond J-SchoolTue, 31 Aug 2010 14:43:16 -0800 - Education content on MediaShift is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. About this Series After the success last month with our Beyond Content Farms series, we decided to do another in-depth special series on MediaShift. This time the series will look at \"Beyond J-School,\" chronicling how journalism education and training are changing, and how journalists need more than traditional j-school. They need multimedia skills, social media knowledge, community management chops, and must learn to collaborate with their audience. It\'s more than just learning the basics of journalism: They also need more background in business, entrepreneurship, technology and even programming. The entire series is linked below, and we\'ll be updating it throughout the next two weeks. Check Out All the Posts > How to Teach Social Media in Journalism Schools by Alfred Hermida > 5Across - Beyond J-School, a video roundtable show hosted by Mark Glaser > Revamping J-Schools in Australia to Bring in Citizens Agenda by Julie Posetti Coming soon: Sept. 2: Jen Reeves: Students\' Fear of Failure and Tech Sept. 3: Dorian Benkoil: Business in Media Education Sept. 7: Dan Reimold: J-Students who Double as Online Entrepreneurs Sept. 8: Nick Baumann: Journalist/Law School Program Sept. 9: Craig Silverman: Programming Being Taught in J-Schools Sept. 10: Davis Shaver: Innovations at New York City\'s J-Schools Your Feedback What do you think about our series? How could it be improved? Are there other series you\'d like to see MediaShift tackle in the coming months? We\'d like to hear from you either in the comments below or via our Feedback form. Education content on MediaShift is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com.
After the success last month with our Beyond Content Farms series, we decided to do another in-depth special series on MediaShift. This time the series will look at \"Beyond J-School,\" chronicling how journalism education and training are changing, and how journalists need more than traditional j-school. They need multimedia skills, social media knowledge, community management chops, and must learn to collaborate with their audience. It\'s more than just learning the basics of journalism: They also need more background in business, entrepreneurship, technology and even programming. The entire series is linked below, and we\'ll be updating it throughout the next two weeks.
> How to Teach Social Media in Journalism Schools by Alfred Hermida
> 5Across - Beyond J-School, a video roundtable show hosted by Mark Glaser
> Revamping J-Schools in Australia to Bring in Citizens Agenda by Julie Posetti
Coming soon:
Sept. 2: Jen Reeves: Students\' Fear of Failure and Tech Sept. 3: Dorian Benkoil: Business in Media Education Sept. 7: Dan Reimold: J-Students who Double as Online Entrepreneurs Sept. 8: Nick Baumann: Journalist/Law School Program Sept. 9: Craig Silverman: Programming Being Taught in J-Schools Sept. 10: Davis Shaver: Innovations at New York City\'s J-Schools
What do you think about our series? How could it be improved? Are there other series you\'d like to see MediaShift tackle in the coming months? We\'d like to hear from you either in the comments below or via our Feedback form.
This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».
5Across: Beyond J-SchoolTue, 31 Aug 2010 12:39:09 -0800 - 5Across is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. Just as traditional media has struggled with disruptive technology and the Internet, so too have the institutions that run journalism education. Most journalism schools and training programs are run by people whose careers were framed by print, broadcast and traditional PR, so how can students get the skills they need in the digital age? We convened a group of journalism educators, a trainer, a student and a J-school dropout to discuss how journalism education is shifting. The discussion flowed from the changing curriculum to the student\'s mindset -- why do students still believe in the romance of a journalism career when there are so few jobs? How should educators teach new multimedia skills, as well as collaboration with other journalists and even the people formerly known as the audience? And finally, do students even need a journalism degree or can they learn it all themselves. We discuss this and a whole lot more on this spirited episode of 5Across, part of our two-week special on journalism education at MediaShift. Check it out! 5Across: Beyond J-School beyondjschool.mp4 >>> Subscribe to 5Across video podcast <<< >>> Subscribe to 5Across via iTunes <<< Guest Biographies After dropping out of journalism school in 1998, Lea Aschkenas wrote a story about her experiences for Salon. Her post-journalism school career includes a stint as a staff reporter, itinerant freelance writer, and author of the memoir, \"Es Cuba: Life and Love on an Illegal Island\" (Seal Press, 2006). She has also written for the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle. Currently, she works as a public librarian and teaches poetry-writing through the California Poets in the Schools program. Kelly Goff is a senior in the journalism department at San Francisco State University, focusing on print and online journalism. She recently moved to San Francisco from Los Angeles, where she earned her associates in journalism from Pierce College. She is also an assistant events planner with the Journalism Association of Community Colleges. Jon Funabiki is a professor of journalism at San Francisco State University and executive director of the Renaissance Journalism Center, which conducts projects to stimulate journalistic innovations that strengthen communities. Funabiki is the former deputy director of the Ford Foundation\'s Media, Arts & Culture Unit and was the founding director of San Francisco State University\'s Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism. As a journalist with The San Diego Union, he specialized in U.S.-Asia political and economic affairs and reported from Japan, China, South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam and other countries. Lanita Pace-Hinton is the director of the Knight Digital Media Center, a continuing education program based at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. The Knight Digital Media Center offers free week-long workshops that provides journalists with hands-on training on multimedia storytelling and how to use web tools and social media. Lanita has served as director of career services and industry outreach for the UC Berkeley journalism school. She advised students on skills development and how to prepare for their entry into the profession. Full disclosure: The Knight Digital Media Center is a sponsor of PBS MediaShift. Howard Rheingold is a prominent author, educator and speaker on technology and the Internet. He wrote best-sellers about virtual reality and virtual communities, and was the founding executive editor of HotWired. He also founded Electric Minds in the mid-\'90s. Rheingold has taught as appointed lecturer at UC Berkeley and Stanford University and has spoken about the social, cultural, political and economic impacts of new technologies. If you\'d prefer to watch sections of the show rather than the entire show, I\'ve broken them down by topic below. Shifting the Curriculum The Student\'s Mindset The Good and Bad of Social Media Journalism School Necessary? Teaching Tech Skills Credits Mark Glaser, executive producer and host Corbin Hiar, research assistant Singeli Agnew, camera Julie Caine, audio Location: Vega Project & Kennerly Architecture office space in San Francisco Special thanks to: PBS and the Knight Foundation Music by AJ the DJ ***** What do you think? Are you an educator or student with thoughts on how journalism should be taught? Do you think a degree in journalism is necessary to become a journalist? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit. 5Across is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com.
5Across is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com.
Just as traditional media has struggled with disruptive technology and the Internet, so too have the institutions that run journalism education. Most journalism schools and training programs are run by people whose careers were framed by print, broadcast and traditional PR, so how can students get the skills they need in the digital age? We convened a group of journalism educators, a trainer, a student and a J-school dropout to discuss how journalism education is shifting.
The discussion flowed from the changing curriculum to the student\'s mindset -- why do students still believe in the romance of a journalism career when there are so few jobs? How should educators teach new multimedia skills, as well as collaboration with other journalists and even the people formerly known as the audience? And finally, do students even need a journalism degree or can they learn it all themselves. We discuss this and a whole lot more on this spirited episode of 5Across, part of our two-week special on journalism education at MediaShift. Check it out!
beyondjschool.mp4
>>> Subscribe to 5Across video podcast <<<
>>> Subscribe to 5Across via iTunes <<<
After dropping out of journalism school in 1998, Lea Aschkenas wrote a story about her experiences for Salon. Her post-journalism school career includes a stint as a staff reporter, itinerant freelance writer, and author of the memoir, \"Es Cuba: Life and Love on an Illegal Island\" (Seal Press, 2006). She has also written for the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle. Currently, she works as a public librarian and teaches poetry-writing through the California Poets in the Schools program.
Kelly Goff is a senior in the journalism department at San Francisco State University, focusing on print and online journalism. She recently moved to San Francisco from Los Angeles, where she earned her associates in journalism from Pierce College. She is also an assistant events planner with the Journalism Association of Community Colleges.
Jon Funabiki is a professor of journalism at San Francisco State University and executive director of the Renaissance Journalism Center, which conducts projects to stimulate journalistic innovations that strengthen communities. Funabiki is the former deputy director of the Ford Foundation\'s Media, Arts & Culture Unit and was the founding director of San Francisco State University\'s Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism. As a journalist with The San Diego Union, he specialized in U.S.-Asia political and economic affairs and reported from Japan, China, South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam and other countries.
Lanita Pace-Hinton is the director of the Knight Digital Media Center, a continuing education program based at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. The Knight Digital Media Center offers free week-long workshops that provides journalists with hands-on training on multimedia storytelling and how to use web tools and social media. Lanita has served as director of career services and industry outreach for the UC Berkeley journalism school. She advised students on skills development and how to prepare for their entry into the profession.
Full disclosure: The Knight Digital Media Center is a sponsor of PBS MediaShift.
Howard Rheingold is a prominent author, educator and speaker on technology and the Internet. He wrote best-sellers about virtual reality and virtual communities, and was the founding executive editor of HotWired. He also founded Electric Minds in the mid-\'90s. Rheingold has taught as appointed lecturer at UC Berkeley and Stanford University and has spoken about the social, cultural, political and economic impacts of new technologies.
If you\'d prefer to watch sections of the show rather than the entire show, I\'ve broken them down by topic below.
Credits
Mark Glaser, executive producer and host Corbin Hiar, research assistant Singeli Agnew, camera Julie Caine, audio Location: Vega Project & Kennerly Architecture office space in San Francisco Special thanks to: PBS and the Knight Foundation Music by AJ the DJ
*****
What do you think? Are you an educator or student with thoughts on how journalism should be taught? Do you think a degree in journalism is necessary to become a journalist? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit.
How to Teach Social Media in Journalism SchoolsMon, 30 Aug 2010 11:24:24 -0800 - Education content on MediaShift is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. Editor\'s Note: This is the first in our special series at MediaShift, Beyond J-School where we will take an in-depth look at the state of journalism education and training in the digital age. Look out for more articles all this week and next. Social media is such a new phenomenon that it is easy for someone to claim to be an expert in the subject. A search on Twitter throws up all sorts of people claiming to be social media gurus. But at journalism schools, professors are working out how to teach social media to ensure that graduating students are proficient, if not expert, in this new addition to the curriculum. Students use social media in their daily lives, with Facebook an almost permanent fixture on the computer screen. Yet they tend not to think about social media as part of their professional toolkit as journalists. If anything, anecdotal evidence suggests that students are resistant to adopting social media, seeing it as a personal activity, rather than as part of their work as a journalist. The pressure is on educators to demonstrate the professional value of social media. The first step is working out what we mean by social media. After all, there has also been a social aspect to media, whether it was people discussing last night\'s TV in the office or clipping a newspaper article to send to a friend. But there is something new about services such as Facebook, Flickr and Twitter that let people connect, create, share and mash-up media. European researchers Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as \"a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.\" In other words, digital technologies that empower users to interact with each other, and participate and collaborate in the making of media, rather than just consuming media. Clearly there is more to social media in the classroom than technology. Central to teaching social media is providing an understanding of how these digital tools affect the way students actually do journalism. The issue for many journalism schools is incorporating social media into an established and packed curriculum, within an academic environment where the pace of change is slow. Lessons in best practices The question of how to teach social media in a way that enhances journalism reverberated at a meeting of hundreds of journalism educators from across North America. The annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) in Denver provided a platform to discuss ideas on social media in the classroom. In a sign of the growing recognition of social media, the AEJMC even organized a competition for educators to share some of their best practices for incorporating social media into the classroom. (Read MediaShift\'s previous coverage of the AEJMC conference here.) One idea mentioned by several speakers at the AEJMC conference was the value of incorporating social media into beat reporting. There are various ways that this can be done. Students can use Twitter to monitor the community chatter on issues in their beats through hashtags. They can also identify and follow key people connected to their beat. But students also need to understand how to assess the stream of information on social media. Real-time services such as Twitter have established themselves as primary sources for breaking news, so it is important to teach students to critically measure and check the validity of information. Social media is one way of introducing students to the notion of journalism as a conversation. The key lesson here is that these tools are not just another channel to distribute the finished story. Social media can help journalists reach out to audiences, seeking ideas for stories and fresh perspectives on stories they are working on. One of the challenges here is teaching the different norms and practices on different social media services. For example, just posting a message seeking information is frowned upon. Instead, students are encouraged to be active on social media, showing they are contributing to the conversation rather than just taking. Reputation Management Social media blurs the line between the personal and the professional, so another important lesson is how to build and manage your online identity. Serena Carpenter at the Cronkite School at Arizona State University has students use Google themselves to research their online identity. She has found students are encouraged to adopt social media when they see themselves appear high up on Google. In a variation of this, I have students Google each other to find out something they didn\'t know about their peer. The aim of the exercise is to make students aware of how future employers might see them. The next stage is teaching students how to manage their reputation and establish their credibility. Prof. Carpenter has students complete their bio on numerous sites such as LinkedIn and Google Profile using the same photo, credentials and web links. Social media has also been used for student-centered learning, for example, to educate students about the strengths and weaknesses of online collaboration. Bob Britten of West Virginia University used Google Maps for students to work together to map retirement homes in the area. Rather than lecture students on the credibility of Wikipedia, Gary Ritzenthaler, a PhD student at the University of Florida, created a wiki for students to collaborate on study notes for an upcoming test. By participating, the students learned about collaborative writing but also became aware of questions about the credibility of content produced by others. Thinking About Social Media Practicing social media is not enough in an academic environment. There has to be a place for student reflection on what they have learned, explaining their understanding of social media. Students should have set out their goals for the use of social media and demonstrate they can assess the most appropriate platforms and services. Teaching social media is more than showing students the mechanics of Twitter. Rather, they should learn how to build a network of relevant followers and how to interact with them to be a better journalist. In the classroom, we need to stress that social media technologies do not just offer journalists new ways of doing old things. They offer the potential to explore new ways of telling stories, of collaborating and connecting with audiences, of rethinking how we do journalism. Photo of AEJMC panel by Hunter Stevens via AEJMC News Alfred Hermida is an online news pioneer and journalism educator. He is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Journalism, the University of British Columbia, where he leads the integrated journalism program. He was a founding news editor of the BBC News website. He blogs at Reportr.net. Education content on MediaShift is sponsored by 4 Minute Roundup: Google Offers Free Calls via GmailFri, 27 Aug 2010 15:36:29 -0800 - 4MR is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. In this week\'s 4MR podcast I look at the recently launched free phone service from Google through Gmail. Undercutting Skype and other VoIP services (not to mention landlines), Google is letting people call from their computer to anywhere in the U.S. or Canada for free, and charging low international rates. What\'s in it for Google? I spoke to tech pundit and Computerworld contributor Mitch Wagner to learn more. Check it out: bareaudio82710.mp3 >>> Subscribe to 4MR <<< >>> Subscribe to 4MR via iTunes <<< Listen to my entire interview with Mitch Wagner: wagner full.mp3 Background music is \"What the World Needs\" by the The Ukelele Hipster Kings via PodSafe Music Network. Here are some links to related sites and stories mentioned in the podcast: Call Phones from Gmail at Google Six Things Google\'s Free Phone Service Can\'t Do at NY Times Gmail call feature a ringing success, a million times over at Christian Science Monitor How to make calls using Gmail at CNET Google reportedly adding voice calling to Gmail at Computerworld Gmail Voice Is About Future Search, Not Free Calls at Gizmodo Gmail\'s now in the phone biz. Trouble for carriers down the road? at Sprint Connection blog Google continues the assault on the price of a phone call at Washington Post Google adds free phone calls to Gmail, wow at Seattle Times Google Voice phone booths Dr. Who might love at News.com Google introduces Gmail-linked phone service at SF Chronicle Also, be sure to vote in our poll about what you think the future of the landline will be: What\'s the future of the landline telephone?Market Research Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit. 4MR is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».
Editor\'s Note: This is the first in our special series at MediaShift, Beyond J-School where we will take an in-depth look at the state of journalism education and training in the digital age. Look out for more articles all this week and next.
Social media is such a new phenomenon that it is easy for someone to claim to be an expert in the subject. A search on Twitter throws up all sorts of people claiming to be social media gurus. But at journalism schools, professors are working out how to teach social media to ensure that graduating students are proficient, if not expert, in this new addition to the curriculum.
Students use social media in their daily lives, with Facebook an almost permanent fixture on the computer screen. Yet they tend not to think about social media as part of their professional toolkit as journalists.
If anything, anecdotal evidence suggests that students are resistant to adopting social media, seeing it as a personal activity, rather than as part of their work as a journalist. The pressure is on educators to demonstrate the professional value of social media.
The first step is working out what we mean by social media. After all, there has also been a social aspect to media, whether it was people discussing last night\'s TV in the office or clipping a newspaper article to send to a friend. But there is something new about services such as Facebook, Flickr and Twitter that let people connect, create, share and mash-up media.
European researchers Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as \"a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.\" In other words, digital technologies that empower users to interact with each other, and participate and collaborate in the making of media, rather than just consuming media.
Clearly there is more to social media in the classroom than technology. Central to teaching social media is providing an understanding of how these digital tools affect the way students actually do journalism. The issue for many journalism schools is incorporating social media into an established and packed curriculum, within an academic environment where the pace of change is slow.
The question of how to teach social media in a way that enhances journalism reverberated at a meeting of hundreds of journalism educators from across North America. The annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) in Denver provided a platform to discuss ideas on social media in the classroom. In a sign of the growing recognition of social media, the AEJMC even organized a competition for educators to share some of their best practices for incorporating social media into the classroom. (Read MediaShift\'s previous coverage of the AEJMC conference here.)
One idea mentioned by several speakers at the AEJMC conference was the value of incorporating social media into beat reporting. There are various ways that this can be done. Students can use Twitter to monitor the community chatter on issues in their beats through hashtags. They can also identify and follow key people connected to their beat.
But students also need to understand how to assess the stream of information on social media. Real-time services such as Twitter have established themselves as primary sources for breaking news, so it is important to teach students to critically measure and check the validity of information.
Social media is one way of introducing students to the notion of journalism as a conversation. The key lesson here is that these tools are not just another channel to distribute the finished story. Social media can help journalists reach out to audiences, seeking ideas for stories and fresh perspectives on stories they are working on.
One of the challenges here is teaching the different norms and practices on different social media services. For example, just posting a message seeking information is frowned upon. Instead, students are encouraged to be active on social media, showing they are contributing to the conversation rather than just taking.
Social media blurs the line between the personal and the professional, so another important lesson is how to build and manage your online identity. Serena Carpenter at the Cronkite School at Arizona State University has students use Google themselves to research their online identity. She has found students are encouraged to adopt social media when they see themselves appear high up on Google.
In a variation of this, I have students Google each other to find out something they didn\'t know about their peer. The aim of the exercise is to make students aware of how future employers might see them.
The next stage is teaching students how to manage their reputation and establish their credibility. Prof. Carpenter has students complete their bio on numerous sites such as LinkedIn and Google Profile using the same photo, credentials and web links.
Social media has also been used for student-centered learning, for example, to educate students about the strengths and weaknesses of online collaboration. Bob Britten of West Virginia University used Google Maps for students to work together to map retirement homes in the area.
Rather than lecture students on the credibility of Wikipedia, Gary Ritzenthaler, a PhD student at the University of Florida, created a wiki for students to collaborate on study notes for an upcoming test. By participating, the students learned about collaborative writing but also became aware of questions about the credibility of content produced by others.
Practicing social media is not enough in an academic environment. There has to be a place for student reflection on what they have learned, explaining their understanding of social media. Students should have set out their goals for the use of social media and demonstrate they can assess the most appropriate platforms and services.
Teaching social media is more than showing students the mechanics of Twitter. Rather, they should learn how to build a network of relevant followers and how to interact with them to be a better journalist.
In the classroom, we need to stress that social media technologies do not just offer journalists new ways of doing old things. They offer the potential to explore new ways of telling stories, of collaborating and connecting with audiences, of rethinking how we do journalism.
Photo of AEJMC panel by Hunter Stevens via AEJMC News
Alfred Hermida is an online news pioneer and journalism educator. He is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Journalism, the University of British Columbia, where he leads the integrated journalism program. He was a founding news editor of the BBC News website. He blogs at Reportr.net.
Education content on MediaShift is sponsored by
4 Minute Roundup: Google Offers Free Calls via GmailFri, 27 Aug 2010 15:36:29 -0800 - 4MR is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. In this week\'s 4MR podcast I look at the recently launched free phone service from Google through Gmail. Undercutting Skype and other VoIP services (not to mention landlines), Google is letting people call from their computer to anywhere in the U.S. or Canada for free, and charging low international rates. What\'s in it for Google? I spoke to tech pundit and Computerworld contributor Mitch Wagner to learn more. Check it out: bareaudio82710.mp3 >>> Subscribe to 4MR <<< >>> Subscribe to 4MR via iTunes <<< Listen to my entire interview with Mitch Wagner: wagner full.mp3 Background music is \"What the World Needs\" by the The Ukelele Hipster Kings via PodSafe Music Network. Here are some links to related sites and stories mentioned in the podcast: Call Phones from Gmail at Google Six Things Google\'s Free Phone Service Can\'t Do at NY Times Gmail call feature a ringing success, a million times over at Christian Science Monitor How to make calls using Gmail at CNET Google reportedly adding voice calling to Gmail at Computerworld Gmail Voice Is About Future Search, Not Free Calls at Gizmodo Gmail\'s now in the phone biz. Trouble for carriers down the road? at Sprint Connection blog Google continues the assault on the price of a phone call at Washington Post Google adds free phone calls to Gmail, wow at Seattle Times Google Voice phone booths Dr. Who might love at News.com Google introduces Gmail-linked phone service at SF Chronicle Also, be sure to vote in our poll about what you think the future of the landline will be: What\'s the future of the landline telephone?Market Research Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit. 4MR is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com.
4MR is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com.
In this week\'s 4MR podcast I look at the recently launched free phone service from Google through Gmail. Undercutting Skype and other VoIP services (not to mention landlines), Google is letting people call from their computer to anywhere in the U.S. or Canada for free, and charging low international rates. What\'s in it for Google? I spoke to tech pundit and Computerworld contributor Mitch Wagner to learn more.
Check it out:
bareaudio82710.mp3
>>> Subscribe to 4MR <<<
>>> Subscribe to 4MR via iTunes <<<
Listen to my entire interview with Mitch Wagner:
wagner full.mp3
Background music is \"What the World Needs\" by the The Ukelele Hipster Kings via PodSafe Music Network.
Here are some links to related sites and stories mentioned in the podcast:
Call Phones from Gmail at Google
Six Things Google\'s Free Phone Service Can\'t Do at NY Times
Gmail call feature a ringing success, a million times over at Christian Science Monitor
How to make calls using Gmail at CNET
Google reportedly adding voice calling to Gmail at Computerworld
Gmail Voice Is About Future Search, Not Free Calls at Gizmodo
Gmail\'s now in the phone biz. Trouble for carriers down the road? at Sprint Connection blog
Google continues the assault on the price of a phone call at Washington Post
Google adds free phone calls to Gmail, wow at Seattle Times
Google Voice phone booths Dr. Who might love at News.com
Google introduces Gmail-linked phone service at SF Chronicle
Also, be sure to vote in our poll about what you think the future of the landline will be:
What\'s the future of the landline telephone?Market Research
Free Speech at Stake as India Demands Encrypted BlackBerry DataThu, 26 Aug 2010 10:40:39 -0800 - Next week will be decisive for BlackBerry corporate users. BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) could provide a solution to help security agencies in India access corporate email by obtaining encrypted data in readable formats. If RIM does not offer a solution before the end of the month, India has warned that it will block BlackBerry Messenger service in the country for corporate users. BlackBerry phones encrypt their services better than most smartphones do, and this has been one of the selling points for BlackBerry as a device for corporate users. RIM has to this point refused to provide access codes that would allow governments to monitor the content of encrypted messages. Should RIM provide the Indian government with access to the data, it would not only hurt freedom of expression -- it would likely also hurt the BlackBerry\'s reputation as the business device of choice. About More Than The BlackBerry The Indian government isn\'t the only seeking access to BlackBerry data. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia claim that BlackBerry\'s services break their laws and threaten national security. The UAE\'s Telecommunication Regulatory Authority announced that it will suspend BlackBerry\'s instant messaging, email, web browsing and roaming services starting October 11. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is still allowing BlackBerry\'s instant messaging service to operate. Saudi authorities had planned to suspend it on August 6, but they only ended up blocking the service for a few hours. The company and government continue to work toward a compromise. Reporters Without Borders is worried about the BlackBerry issue because the \"national security\" argument is just a pretext for these countries to take steps to restrict access to new technology and to tools that help with freedom of expression. In the UAE, some BlackBerry users were arrested for using BlackBerry Messenger to try to organize a protest against increased gas prices. What really bothers these countries is their inability to monitor the communication flowing via BlackBerry\'s services. Indonesia, Egypt, Lebanon, Algeria and Kuwait have also voiced concern about BlackBerry\'s encrypted services, and it\'s no coincidence that some of these countries are home to a wide range of censorship measures. In Indonesia, for example, the government requires ISPs to filter out porn -- without providing them a specific list of offending sites. The inevitable result is that the ISPs cause collateral damage by blocking other websites with no direct link to pornography. This is also the case in Saudi Arabia. Filtering also slows down connection speeds throughout the country. Aside from censorship, these countries are also known for monitoring the communications and web usage of citizens. It\'s therefore natural to question whether the requests for BlackBerry to offer access to its services are truly meant to fight terrorism, or if it\'s about finding another way to monitor the communications of citizens? U.S. Perspective These countries would do well to learn from an example in the United States. In 2003, the Department of Justice drafted legislation that would have lengthened prison sentences for people who used encryption in the commission of a crime. Defenders of encryption said it would do little to help catch terrorists, and would instead hamper the work of activists. The legislation never passed -- even though the fight against terrorism was a top priority of the government. RIM\'s BlackBerry encryption isn\'t alone in being targeted. India plans on asking Google and Skype for similar access, which means this issue is about more than just one company\'s device. It\'s about the future of private communications in countries prone to censorship and other abuses. Clothilde Le Coz has been working for Reporters Without Borders in Paris since 2007. She is now the Washington director for this organization, helping to promote press freedom and free speech around the world. In Paris, she was in charge of the Internet Freedom desk and worked especially on China, Iran, Egypt and Thailand. During the time she spent in Paris, she was also updating the \"Handbook for Bloggers and Cyberdissidents,\" published in 2005. Her role is now to get the message out for readers and politicians to be aware of the constant threat journalists are submitted to in many countries.
Next week will be decisive for BlackBerry corporate users. BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) could provide a solution to help security agencies in India access corporate email by obtaining encrypted data in readable formats. If RIM does not offer a solution before the end of the month, India has warned that it will block BlackBerry Messenger service in the country for corporate users.
BlackBerry phones encrypt their services better than most smartphones do, and this has been one of the selling points for BlackBerry as a device for corporate users. RIM has to this point refused to provide access codes that would allow governments to monitor the content of encrypted messages. Should RIM provide the Indian government with access to the data, it would not only hurt freedom of expression -- it would likely also hurt the BlackBerry\'s reputation as the business device of choice.
The Indian government isn\'t the only seeking access to BlackBerry data. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia claim that BlackBerry\'s services break their laws and threaten national security. The UAE\'s Telecommunication Regulatory Authority announced that it will suspend BlackBerry\'s instant messaging, email, web browsing and roaming services starting October 11. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is still allowing BlackBerry\'s instant messaging service to operate. Saudi authorities had planned to suspend it on August 6, but they only ended up blocking the service for a few hours. The company and government continue to work toward a compromise.
Reporters Without Borders is worried about the BlackBerry issue because the \"national security\" argument is just a pretext for these countries to take steps to restrict access to new technology and to tools that help with freedom of expression. In the UAE, some BlackBerry users were arrested for using BlackBerry Messenger to try to organize a protest against increased gas prices.
What really bothers these countries is their inability to monitor the communication flowing via BlackBerry\'s services. Indonesia, Egypt, Lebanon, Algeria and Kuwait have also voiced concern about BlackBerry\'s encrypted services, and it\'s no coincidence that some of these countries are home to a wide range of censorship measures. In Indonesia, for example, the government requires ISPs to filter out porn -- without providing them a specific list of offending sites. The inevitable result is that the ISPs cause collateral damage by blocking other websites with no direct link to pornography. This is also the case in Saudi Arabia. Filtering also slows down connection speeds throughout the country. Aside from censorship, these countries are also known for monitoring the communications and web usage of citizens.
It\'s therefore natural to question whether the requests for BlackBerry to offer access to its services are truly meant to fight terrorism, or if it\'s about finding another way to monitor the communications of citizens?
These countries would do well to learn from an example in the United States. In 2003, the Department of Justice drafted legislation that would have lengthened prison sentences for people who used encryption in the commission of a crime. Defenders of encryption said it would do little to help catch terrorists, and would instead hamper the work of activists. The legislation never passed -- even though the fight against terrorism was a top priority of the government.
RIM\'s BlackBerry encryption isn\'t alone in being targeted. India plans on asking Google and Skype for similar access, which means this issue is about more than just one company\'s device. It\'s about the future of private communications in countries prone to censorship and other abuses.
Clothilde Le Coz has been working for Reporters Without Borders in Paris since 2007. She is now the Washington director for this organization, helping to promote press freedom and free speech around the world. In Paris, she was in charge of the Internet Freedom desk and worked especially on China, Iran, Egypt and Thailand. During the time she spent in Paris, she was also updating the \"Handbook for Bloggers and Cyberdissidents,\" published in 2005. Her role is now to get the message out for readers and politicians to be aware of the constant threat journalists are submitted to in many countries.
While Others Shrink, KQED Expands Cross-Platform NewsWed, 25 Aug 2010 09:55:53 -0800 - Last month, KQED News in San Francisco dramatically expanded the scope of its news coverage with a new website, an increase from six to 16 local radio newscasts and the addition of eight news staffers, including six producers/reporters, a developer and a social media specialist. Its expansion will continue over the next several months (look for a new news blog in the next couple of months). The changes at KQED reflect a system-wide emphasis on experimentation and news expansion by public media outlets. Since the release of the Knight Commission\'s report, Informing Communities - Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age, last October, station-based news projects have grown substantially. Large, cross-platform projects are becoming more prevalent, especially among public media organizations with the resources to produce them. See, for example, some of the innovative work being done by outlets like WYNC and WBUR. Cross-Platform Coverage + Collaboration KQED\'s news site combines coverage from KQED Public Radio, KQED Public Television, and KQEDnews.org. In addition to cross-platform news coverage within KQED, the site aims to provide seamless integration of local, national, and international coverage (thanks to extensive integration of NPR\'s API); in-depth news and commentary (including investigative reporting); and real-time weather and traffic updates. Eventually, the site will incorporate additional interactive features to make news stories more dynamic and relevant to Northern California residents. According to Tim Olson, KQED\'s vice president of digital media and education, the expanded site is part of an overall increased push in news coverage. This shift is not the result of a new dedicated source of funding. Rather, said Olson, \"It was something [KQED president and CEO] John Boland wanted to do for a long time. We restructured the budget to accommodate these changes.\" The new site builds on KQED\'s history of successful collaborative initiatives. For example, KQED Quest is a \"multimedia series exploring Northern California science, environment and nature.\" Quest integrates radio, television, and online coverage in a site that features maps, a community blog, and hands-on explorations. KQED News also already has a wealth of in-depth news reports that integrate social media and Web 2.0 technologies. Take, for example, Climate Watch, which provides continuous coverage of climate-related news and incorporates mapping projects such as Reservoir Watch, which tracks the state\'s water reservoir levels. There\'s also California\'s Water Bond - Where Would the Money Go?, which explores the distribution of funds in recent California water-related legislation. Another special feature, Governing California, invites users to learn about California government. This feature includes a California Budget Challenge game that allows users to submit their thoughts on spending decisions, and an interactive timeline of reform history in the state. Additionally, \"Health Dialogues,\" an exploration of health and health care in the state, includes an interactive map of health issues in rural California and Healthy Ideas, an eight-week special project that invited health care professionals to share their ideas on health care reform. KQED News also incorporates maps, Twitter feeds, blogs, podcasts, video and user commenting on its news stories. KQED radio dedicates a portion of airtime to listener feedback, and the integrated site includes Perspectives, a section that provides two-minute audio commentaries from listeners each day. Listen to this recent Perspective audio report from a KQED listener: Traffic Increase & Challenges Since the launch of the expanded site, KQED News has seen a 10-fold increase in the number of users, an impressive feat considering that, according to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle, \"Measured by audience size and budget, KQED is the largest public station in the country with TV and radio under one roof.\" KQED is growing in terms of partnerships as well: The organization currently has ongoing partnerships with upwards of 25 other news outlets, including organizations like the Center for Investigative Reporting, Youth Radio, and ProPublica, and this number is growing. The expansion is not without its challenges, however. KQED\'s clear strength is in radio news, but, as Olson noted, \"text and images are required for a robust online news presence.\" Improving the text on the site is a major priority, and as the site continues to expand, this emphasis will grow as well. Olson noted that NPR has gone through a similar transition over the past few years, which was addressed by gradually training reporting staff, and adding photo editors and copy editors. Another challenge is balancing the \"one-stop shopping mall\" all-news aggregator approach with the \"hyper-targeted topic verticals\" approach. It\'s sometimes difficult for sites to combine both of these elements, and KQED is currently testing both approaches, in addition to some of the more targeted projects listed above. Olson said the expanded site is \"very much just the first step\" in overall growth. In addition to a news blog, \"News Fix,\" launching shortly, a mobile version of the site is currently in production, and will be released in the fall. \"We\'re in it for the long haul,\" said Olson. \"We\'re just getting started.\" Katie Donnelly is Associate Research Director at the Center for Social Media at American University where she blogs about the future of public media. With a background in media literacy education, Katie previously worked as a Research Associate at Temple University\'s Media Education Lab in Philadelphia. When she\'s not researching media, Katie spends her time working in the environmental field and blogging about food.
Last month, KQED News in San Francisco dramatically expanded the scope of its news coverage with a new website, an increase from six to 16 local radio newscasts and the addition of eight news staffers, including six producers/reporters, a developer and a social media specialist. Its expansion will continue over the next several months (look for a new news blog in the next couple of months).
The changes at KQED reflect a system-wide emphasis on experimentation and news expansion by public media outlets. Since the release of the Knight Commission\'s report, Informing Communities - Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age, last October, station-based news projects have grown substantially. Large, cross-platform projects are becoming more prevalent, especially among public media organizations with the resources to produce them. See, for example, some of the innovative work being done by outlets like WYNC and WBUR.
KQED\'s news site combines coverage from KQED Public Radio, KQED Public Television, and KQEDnews.org. In addition to cross-platform news coverage within KQED, the site aims to provide seamless integration of local, national, and international coverage (thanks to extensive integration of NPR\'s API); in-depth news and commentary (including investigative reporting); and real-time weather and traffic updates. Eventually, the site will incorporate additional interactive features to make news stories more dynamic and relevant to Northern California residents.
According to Tim Olson, KQED\'s vice president of digital media and education, the expanded site is part of an overall increased push in news coverage. This shift is not the result of a new dedicated source of funding. Rather, said Olson, \"It was something [KQED president and CEO] John Boland wanted to do for a long time. We restructured the budget to accommodate these changes.\"
The new site builds on KQED\'s history of successful collaborative initiatives. For example, KQED Quest is a \"multimedia series exploring Northern California science, environment and nature.\" Quest integrates radio, television, and online coverage in a site that features maps, a community blog, and hands-on explorations.
KQED News also already has a wealth of in-depth news reports that integrate social media and Web 2.0 technologies. Take, for example, Climate Watch, which provides continuous coverage of climate-related news and incorporates mapping projects such as Reservoir Watch, which tracks the state\'s water reservoir levels. There\'s also California\'s Water Bond - Where Would the Money Go?, which explores the distribution of funds in recent California water-related legislation.
Another special feature, Governing California, invites users to learn about California government. This feature includes a California Budget Challenge game that allows users to submit their thoughts on spending decisions, and an interactive timeline of reform history in the state.
Additionally, \"Health Dialogues,\" an exploration of health and health care in the state, includes an interactive map of health issues in rural California and Healthy Ideas, an eight-week special project that invited health care professionals to share their ideas on health care reform.
KQED News also incorporates maps, Twitter feeds, blogs, podcasts, video and user commenting on its news stories. KQED radio dedicates a portion of airtime to listener feedback, and the integrated site includes Perspectives, a section that provides two-minute audio commentaries from listeners each day.
Listen to this recent Perspective audio report from a KQED listener:
Since the launch of the expanded site, KQED News has seen a 10-fold increase in the number of users, an impressive feat considering that, according to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle, \"Measured by audience size and budget, KQED is the largest public station in the country with TV and radio under one roof.\" KQED is growing in terms of partnerships as well: The organization currently has ongoing partnerships with upwards of 25 other news outlets, including organizations like the Center for Investigative Reporting, Youth Radio, and ProPublica, and this number is growing.
The expansion is not without its challenges, however. KQED\'s clear strength is in radio news, but, as Olson noted, \"text and images are required for a robust online news presence.\" Improving the text on the site is a major priority, and as the site continues to expand, this emphasis will grow as well. Olson noted that NPR has gone through a similar transition over the past few years, which was addressed by gradually training reporting staff, and adding photo editors and copy editors. Another challenge is balancing the \"one-stop shopping mall\" all-news aggregator approach with the \"hyper-targeted topic verticals\" approach. It\'s sometimes difficult for sites to combine both of these elements, and KQED is currently testing both approaches, in addition to some of the more targeted projects listed above.
Olson said the expanded site is \"very much just the first step\" in overall growth. In addition to a news blog, \"News Fix,\" launching shortly, a mobile version of the site is currently in production, and will be released in the fall. \"We\'re in it for the long haul,\" said Olson. \"We\'re just getting started.\"
Katie Donnelly is Associate Research Director at the Center for Social Media at American University where she blogs about the future of public media. With a background in media literacy education, Katie previously worked as a Research Associate at Temple University\'s Media Education Lab in Philadelphia. When she\'s not researching media, Katie spends her time working in the environmental field and blogging about food.
KCET\'s \'Departures\' Exemplifies Community CollaborationTue, 24 Aug 2010 10:36:50 -0800 - I\'ve written for MediaShift several times about journalistic collaboration between news organizations, such as the Climate Desk project, for example, or Public Media\'s EconomyStory. But there\'s another kind of collaboration that\'s critical to the future of journalism: Collaboration between a news organization and the community it serves. This kind of collaboration is critical for a few reasons. First, as anyone who reads MediaShift surely knows, the line between consumers of news and producers of news continues to blur. Community blogger expertise may match that of a newspaper\'s Metro columnist, and the people watching the evening news post their own video of news events to YouTube. Just as formerly competitive newsrooms are beginning to work together, as limited resources encourage the setting aside of differences in pursuit of a superior news product, news organizations need to rethink their relationships with the communities they serve. In addition, finding efficient ways to harness and apply community expertise is increasingly critical to a news organization\'s ability to compete. Projects like Minnesota Public Radio\'s Public Insight Network have emerged to leverage the power of networks to source stories and collect quotes. KCET Departures One example of community/news provider collaboration that really captures my imagination is Departures, an online documentary series from KCET Los Angeles. What sets Departures apart, for me, is the passion and dedication of its producer, Juan Devis. Devis is not just passionate about community collaboration in the abstract, or obedient to the trendy importance of listening to community members; rather, he is passionate about Los Angeles, about the people of Los Angeles, and about bringing the neighborhoods of the city to life in an authentic and compelling way online. \"No one knows Los Angeles as well as the organizations and individuals working and living in the area,\" Devis wrote to me via email. \"By bringing them in and engaging them in every step of the content development process, Departures provides an authentic, accurate and fresh take on the issues and stories most affecting the city.\" For example, Devis and his team produced a recent installment on Chinatown in partnership with the Chinese American Museum and the Chinatown Service Center Youth Council, providing multimedia production training to student reporters, who in turn contributed stories to the series. There is also a concerted effort to capture stories from a diverse array of citizens in order to paint a multi-layered portrait of a neighborhood, rather than extrapolating truths about a place based on scarce citizen interaction. For the Chinatown installment, for example, Devis and crew spoke to hundreds of people from the neighborhood, ranging from community activists Munson Kwok and Irvin Lai, to Congresswoman Judy Chu, to journalists Ann Summa and Jeff Spurrier, who covered the Chinatown Punk Scene in the 1980s. The name \"Departures\" is meant to evoke the idea of traveling within your own city -- discovering new neighborhoods and cultures with fresh eyes, from Chinatown to Compton Creek to Venice Beach\'s Abbot Kinney Boulevard. Devis calls the series a love letter to the city. The content of Departures, then, is more evocative than provocative; it\'s meant to conjure a sense of place, and replicate the experience of talking to the people in a neighborhood -- Mr. Rogers would be proud -- rather than analyze issues or draw conclusions. Non-Linear Storytelling and Falling Short In fact, by design, Departures encourages users to form their own opinions of the city and its people. \"When you\'re tied to a linear narrative, you\'re tied to a point of view,\" Devis said in a video about the project. Departures is decidedly non-linear, with a series of interactive maps and murals serving as gateways to a collection of audio, video, and text stories. This approach to navigation encourages users to explore each installment the way they might explore a physical neighborhood, wandering down a series of streets and alleyways. I admire this concept, though in practice, navigating the Departures site is not quite immersive. (I should confess that I used to write a column about intersections between documentary storytelling and the web, and have strong opinions about multimedia storytelling.) The series home page features individual stories from the latest installment in the manner of a traditional news website; I\'d rather begin at a visually evocative map of the city that lets me \"travel\" to and from individual neighborhoods. While there is a central Departures map, it\'s a traditional map interface with pin points that correspond to the locations of individual stories, rather than a visual interface that evokes a sense of place. The stories in Departures \"should not be the ends unto themselves,\" Devis said, \"but seeds: A context for engagement.\" But while his team\'s real-world, behind-the-scenes engagement with communities is clear, online engagement with Departures seems surprisingly low. The series home page features a \"From the Community\" box, a design decision that seems at odds with the series\' core dedication to stories from the community. The Community box features few comments, and I did not see comments integrated with the stories throughout the site. Given the series ethos, shouldn\'t community members\' responses to the stories -- in other words, the dialogue around the stories -- be an equal part of the storytelling experience? Expanding Departures When I asked Devis about the interplay of Departures with KCET\'s more traditional news programming, he noted that now that the series has matured, \"it offers a concise template that the station itself can follow, so KCET has started to incorporate some Departures elements in its more traditional media spaces.\" Devis also shared that beginning in 2011, his team will begin creating a series of daily TV interstitials tied to Departures. \"We anticipate that, by that time, the media production teams (at KCET) will overlap in ways that we have not seen before,\" he said. Devis talks about wanting to expand Departures beyond Los Angeles, and I hope he can do it. I\'d love to see this kind of artistic representation of local culture depicting communities nationwide. Sure, the site itself could be improved -- but what site couldn\'t be? We need more rich, textured representation of local community culture, and I\'d take a flawed but passionate, visionary approach over a more tepid effort any day. I worry, though, that replication will require reliance on templates, which will inhibit the site\'s ability to be more immersive. \"Journalism and news organizations need to become context providers,\" Devis said. \"That is, they need to create and provide spaces -- structures -- into which users and community members are invited as full participants, and from which meaningful stories can emerge.\" I agree, and I hope other news organizations will be inspired by Devis\' example. ****** What examples have you seen of collaboration between news organizations and local communities? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Image of Chinatown sign courtesy of Flickr user 7-how-7 The former editorial director of PBS.org, Amanda Hirsch is a digital media consultant who recently managed the EconomyStory collaboration, a journalistic partnership between 12 public media organizations. Learn more about Amanda\'s background at amandahirsch.com and follow her on Twitter at @publicmediagirl.
I\'ve written for MediaShift several times about journalistic collaboration between news organizations, such as the Climate Desk project, for example, or Public Media\'s EconomyStory. But there\'s another kind of collaboration that\'s critical to the future of journalism: Collaboration between a news organization and the community it serves.
This kind of collaboration is critical for a few reasons. First, as anyone who reads MediaShift surely knows, the line between consumers of news and producers of news continues to blur. Community blogger expertise may match that of a newspaper\'s Metro columnist, and the people watching the evening news post their own video of news events to YouTube. Just as formerly competitive newsrooms are beginning to work together, as limited resources encourage the setting aside of differences in pursuit of a superior news product, news organizations need to rethink their relationships with the communities they serve.
In addition, finding efficient ways to harness and apply community expertise is increasingly critical to a news organization\'s ability to compete. Projects like Minnesota Public Radio\'s Public Insight Network have emerged to leverage the power of networks to source stories and collect quotes.
One example of community/news provider collaboration that really captures my imagination is Departures, an online documentary series from KCET Los Angeles. What sets Departures apart, for me, is the passion and dedication of its producer, Juan Devis. Devis is not just passionate about community collaboration in the abstract, or obedient to the trendy importance of listening to community members; rather, he is passionate about Los Angeles, about the people of Los Angeles, and about bringing the neighborhoods of the city to life in an authentic and compelling way online.
\"No one knows Los Angeles as well as the organizations and individuals working and living in the area,\" Devis wrote to me via email. \"By bringing them in and engaging them in every step of the content development process, Departures provides an authentic, accurate and fresh take on the issues and stories most affecting the city.\"
For example, Devis and his team produced a recent installment on Chinatown in partnership with the Chinese American Museum and the Chinatown Service Center Youth Council, providing multimedia production training to student reporters, who in turn contributed stories to the series.
There is also a concerted effort to capture stories from a diverse array of citizens in order to paint a multi-layered portrait of a neighborhood, rather than extrapolating truths about a place based on scarce citizen interaction. For the Chinatown installment, for example, Devis and crew spoke to hundreds of people from the neighborhood, ranging from community activists Munson Kwok and Irvin Lai, to Congresswoman Judy Chu, to journalists Ann Summa and Jeff Spurrier, who covered the Chinatown Punk Scene in the 1980s.
The name \"Departures\" is meant to evoke the idea of traveling within your own city -- discovering new neighborhoods and cultures with fresh eyes, from Chinatown to Compton Creek to Venice Beach\'s Abbot Kinney Boulevard. Devis calls the series a love letter to the city. The content of Departures, then, is more evocative than provocative; it\'s meant to conjure a sense of place, and replicate the experience of talking to the people in a neighborhood -- Mr. Rogers would be proud -- rather than analyze issues or draw conclusions.
In fact, by design, Departures encourages users to form their own opinions of the city and its people.
\"When you\'re tied to a linear narrative, you\'re tied to a point of view,\" Devis said in a video about the project. Departures is decidedly non-linear, with a series of interactive maps and murals serving as gateways to a collection of audio, video, and text stories. This approach to navigation encourages users to explore each installment the way they might explore a physical neighborhood, wandering down a series of streets and alleyways.
I admire this concept, though in practice, navigating the Departures site is not quite immersive. (I should confess that I used to write a column about intersections between documentary storytelling and the web, and have strong opinions about multimedia storytelling.) The series home page features individual stories from the latest installment in the manner of a traditional news website; I\'d rather begin at a visually evocative map of the city that lets me \"travel\" to and from individual neighborhoods. While there is a central Departures map, it\'s a traditional map interface with pin points that correspond to the locations of individual stories, rather than a visual interface that evokes a sense of place.
The stories in Departures \"should not be the ends unto themselves,\" Devis said, \"but seeds: A context for engagement.\"
But while his team\'s real-world, behind-the-scenes engagement with communities is clear, online engagement with Departures seems surprisingly low. The series home page features a \"From the Community\" box, a design decision that seems at odds with the series\' core dedication to stories from the community. The Community box features few comments, and I did not see comments integrated with the stories throughout the site. Given the series ethos, shouldn\'t community members\' responses to the stories -- in other words, the dialogue around the stories -- be an equal part of the storytelling experience?
When I asked Devis about the interplay of Departures with KCET\'s more traditional news programming, he noted that now that the series has matured, \"it offers a concise template that the station itself can follow, so KCET has started to incorporate some Departures elements in its more traditional media spaces.\" Devis also shared that beginning in 2011, his team will begin creating a series of daily TV interstitials tied to Departures. \"We anticipate that, by that time, the media production teams (at KCET) will overlap in ways that we have not seen before,\" he said.
Devis talks about wanting to expand Departures beyond Los Angeles, and I hope he can do it. I\'d love to see this kind of artistic representation of local culture depicting communities nationwide. Sure, the site itself could be improved -- but what site couldn\'t be? We need more rich, textured representation of local community culture, and I\'d take a flawed but passionate, visionary approach over a more tepid effort any day. I worry, though, that replication will require reliance on templates, which will inhibit the site\'s ability to be more immersive.
\"Journalism and news organizations need to become context providers,\" Devis said. \"That is, they need to create and provide spaces -- structures -- into which users and community members are invited as full participants, and from which meaningful stories can emerge.\"
I agree, and I hope other news organizations will be inspired by Devis\' example.
******
What examples have you seen of collaboration between news organizations and local communities? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Image of Chinatown sign courtesy of Flickr user 7-how-7
The former editorial director of PBS.org, Amanda Hirsch is a digital media consultant who recently managed the EconomyStory collaboration, a journalistic partnership between 12 public media organizations. Learn more about Amanda\'s background at amandahirsch.com and follow her on Twitter at @publicmediagirl.
Smartphone, HDTV Boom Begets Gargantuan E-Waste ProblemMon, 23 Aug 2010 09:48:58 -0800 - The digital media revolution promises to improve the quality of our lives though an expanded capacity to communicate, collaborate, learn and make informed decisions. Yet our seemingly insatiable demand for digital media is driving a proliferation of consumer electronic devices and IT infrastructure, which are significantly contributing to a tsunami of toxic electronic waste. This week U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson announced that promoting citizen engagement and increasing government accountability on enforcement to improve the design, production, handling, reuse, recycling, exporting and disposal of electronics is of the EPA\'s top six international priorities. In light of this, publishers, device manufacturers, bandwidth providers and other players in the digital media supply chain should rethink their marketing narratives and redouble their efforts to identify, quantify, disclose and manage the toxic e-waste impacts associated with digital media -- before regulation or catastrophe require them to do so. The issues and dilemmas related to digital media and e-waste can be complex and confusing, but if they are ignored or only paid lip service to they will be sure to wash up on the shores of our lives... and in our politics, in short order. If you want a quick take on some of the key issues associated with e-waste, take a few minutes to watch this short animated Public Service Announcement co-produced for Good Magazine by Ian Lynam and Morgan Currie: To learn more, read on. In the weeks ahead we look forward to your questions, comments and suggestions about how issues associated with the environmental impacts of the digital media revolution\'s e-waste detritus can best be addressed. Here are some thought starters to get the conversation rolling. FAQ How much toxic e-waste is being created and what are some of its environmental and social impacts? According to market analyst firm ABI Research, approximately 53 million tons of electronic waste were generated worldwide in 2009, and only about 13% of it was recycled. The Electronics Take Back Coalition (ETBC) estimates that 14 to 20 million PCs are thrown out every year in the U.S. alone. There has been a recent surge in e-waste created by aggressive marketing encouraging consumers to \"upgrade\" basic voice-only mobile devices to 3G and 4G smartphones and mobile game consoles. There has also been an enormous surge in CRT monitors and TV sets set into motion by the switch to large flat screen displays and DVRs. The EPA estimates that over 99 million TV sets, each containing four to eight pounds of lead, cadmium, beryllium and other toxic metals, were stockpiled or stored in the U.S. in 2007, and 26.9 million TVs were disposed of in 2007 -- either by trashing or recycling them. While it\'s not a large part of the waste stream, e-waste shows a higher growth rate than any other category of municipal waste. Overall, between 2005 and 2006, total volumes of municipal waste increased by only 1.2 percent, compared to 8.6 percent for e-waste. Particularly troubling are the mountains of hazardous waste from electronic products growing exponentially in developing countries. The United Nations report Recycling - from E-Waste to Resources predicts that e-waste from old computers will jump by 500 percent from 2007 levels in India by 2020 and by 200 percent to 400 percent in South Africa and China. E-waste from old mobile phones is expected to be seven times higher in China and 18 times higher in India. China already produces about 2.3 million ton of e-waste domestically, second only to the United States, which produces about 3 million tons each year. According to the Electronics Take Back Coalition, e-waste contains over 1,000 toxic materials harmful to humans and our environment, including chlorinated solvents, brominated flame retardants, plasticizers, PVC, heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants, plastics and gases used to make electronic products and their components such as semiconductor chips, batteries, capacitors, circuit boards, and disk drives. E-waste can also contain tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold, of which Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act requires reporting if they originated in Congo or a neighboring country. Not all e-waste is exported to China, India or Africa. The Electronics Take Back Coalition reports that some recyclers and many federal agencies in the U.S. send their e-waste to recycling plants operating in federal prisons operated by UNICOR, a wholly owned subsidiary of the federal Department of Justice. One criticism of UNICOR is that by paying prison workers as little as 23 cents per hour, they undercut private commercial recyclers. Another criticism is that reliance on high tech chain gangs may frustrate development of the free market infrastructure necessary to safely manage the tsunami of e-waste that the digital revolution is intensifying. How much e-waste does the consumption and production of digital media generate? Digital media doesn\'t grow on trees. Its creation, distribution and use requires massive quantities of energy, minerals, metals, petrochemicals and labor. Rather than relying on proprietary estimates of product lifecycles or limited forensic evidence we need reliable standards-based lifecycle inventories of the energy and material flows that make our broadband connectivity and digital media experiences possible. Proponents of digital media often tout the benefits of the digital media shift in terms of the number of trees that will be saved, but shifting to digital media has an environmental footprint and toxic impacts that bear greater scrutiny. The digital media industry has a long way to go before it can declare itself sustainable, or justify its environmental footprint based on cherry-picked data, anecdotal evidence and unfilled promises. Companies like Apple and HP that tout their commitments to sustainability fail to make a even a \"greenish\" grade in the most recent Greenpeace Greener Electronics Scorecard.. Until media companies, device manufacturers and service providers are inspired to make standards-based environmental product declarations through market pressure or regulation, it will be impossible for consumers to make informed decisions or compare the climate change or e-waste impacts associated with specific products or services. A look at the overall growth trends in a few key categories is enough to justify more serious attention to the issues at hand and to the toxic tragedies that loom over the horizon. A shift in preference from traditional media to digital media is one key trend. According to the PriceWaterhouseCoopers report, Global Media and Entertainment 2010-2014, digital media\'s share of consumer spending is growing at double digit rates and is expected to reach 33 percent of their entertainment and media spending by 2014. Growth in the number of broadband mobile connections and wireless devices is also a determining factor. Smartphone manufacturer Ericsson estimates that the world will reach 50 billion mobile connections within this decade with 80 percent of all people accessing the Internet using their mobile devices. Ericsson estimates there are over 500 million 3G subscriptions worldwide with more than 2 million mobile subscriptions being added per day. At current rates of growth some pundits believe we may soon face a 4 Minute Roundup: Facebook Places Wants to Be Turned OffFri, 20 Aug 2010 16:43:22 -0800 - 4MR is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. In this week\'s 4MR podcast I look at the recently launched Facebook Places location feature. While the social network touts it as a great way to tell your friends where you are in the physical world, others worry about the privacy implications. In fact, the most popular stories on the subject are telling people how to turn it off. I talked with Gawker staff writer Adrian Chen about his take on how Facebook could have made it easier to turn Places off. Check it out: 4mrbareaudio82010.mp3 >>> Subscribe to 4MR <<< >>> Subscribe to 4MR via iTunes <<< Listen to my entire interview with Adrian Chen: chen final.mp3 Background music is \"What the World Needs\" by the The Ukelele Hipster Kings via PodSafe Music Network. Here are some links to related sites and stories mentioned in the podcast: Facebook Places Who, What, When, and Now...Where at the Facebook blog The First Thing You Should Do With Facebook Places - Don\'t Let Other People Tag You at Gawker Facebook Places Privacy Controls Get EFF Approval at eWeek Why I\'m Not Using Facebook Places at Jolie O\'Dell\'s blog How to Disable Facebook Places at Huffington Post How To Disable Facebook Places at ReadWriteWeb Facebook Adds Location Check-Ins Through Foursquare, Gowalla, and Yelp at LifeHacker How to Disable Facebook Places at LifeHacker Facebook gets its hands on check-in startup Hot Potato at SocialBeat Also, be sure to vote in our poll about what you think about Facebook Places: What do you think about Facebook Places?survey software Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit. 4MR is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».
The digital media revolution promises to improve the quality of our lives though an expanded capacity to communicate, collaborate, learn and make informed decisions. Yet our seemingly insatiable demand for digital media is driving a proliferation of consumer electronic devices and IT infrastructure, which are significantly contributing to a tsunami of toxic electronic waste.
This week U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson announced that promoting citizen engagement and increasing government accountability on enforcement to improve the design, production, handling, reuse, recycling, exporting and disposal of electronics is of the EPA\'s top six international priorities. In light of this, publishers, device manufacturers, bandwidth providers and other players in the digital media supply chain should rethink their marketing narratives and redouble their efforts to identify, quantify, disclose and manage the toxic e-waste impacts associated with digital media -- before regulation or catastrophe require them to do so.
The issues and dilemmas related to digital media and e-waste can be complex and confusing, but if they are ignored or only paid lip service to they will be sure to wash up on the shores of our lives... and in our politics, in short order. If you want a quick take on some of the key issues associated with e-waste, take a few minutes to watch this short animated Public Service Announcement co-produced for Good Magazine by Ian Lynam and Morgan Currie:
To learn more, read on. In the weeks ahead we look forward to your questions, comments and suggestions about how issues associated with the environmental impacts of the digital media revolution\'s e-waste detritus can best be addressed. Here are some thought starters to get the conversation rolling.
How much toxic e-waste is being created and what are some of its environmental and social impacts?
According to market analyst firm ABI Research, approximately 53 million tons of electronic waste were generated worldwide in 2009, and only about 13% of it was recycled. The Electronics Take Back Coalition (ETBC) estimates that 14 to 20 million PCs are thrown out every year in the U.S. alone. There has been a recent surge in e-waste created by aggressive marketing encouraging consumers to \"upgrade\" basic voice-only mobile devices to 3G and 4G smartphones and mobile game consoles. There has also been an enormous surge in CRT monitors and TV sets set into motion by the switch to large flat screen displays and DVRs.
The EPA estimates that over 99 million TV sets, each containing four to eight pounds of lead, cadmium, beryllium and other toxic metals, were stockpiled or stored in the U.S. in 2007, and 26.9 million TVs were disposed of in 2007 -- either by trashing or recycling them. While it\'s not a large part of the waste stream, e-waste shows a higher growth rate than any other category of municipal waste.
Overall, between 2005 and 2006, total volumes of municipal waste increased by only 1.2 percent, compared to 8.6 percent for e-waste. Particularly troubling are the mountains of hazardous waste from electronic products growing exponentially in developing countries. The United Nations report Recycling - from E-Waste to Resources predicts that e-waste from old computers will jump by 500 percent from 2007 levels in India by 2020 and by 200 percent to 400 percent in South Africa and China. E-waste from old mobile phones is expected to be seven times higher in China and 18 times higher in India. China already produces about 2.3 million ton of e-waste domestically, second only to the United States, which produces about 3 million tons each year.
According to the Electronics Take Back Coalition, e-waste contains over 1,000 toxic materials harmful to humans and our environment, including chlorinated solvents, brominated flame retardants, plasticizers, PVC, heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants, plastics and gases used to make electronic products and their components such as semiconductor chips, batteries, capacitors, circuit boards, and disk drives. E-waste can also contain tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold, of which Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act requires reporting if they originated in Congo or a neighboring country.
Not all e-waste is exported to China, India or Africa. The Electronics Take Back Coalition reports that some recyclers and many federal agencies in the U.S. send their e-waste to recycling plants operating in federal prisons operated by UNICOR, a wholly owned subsidiary of the federal Department of Justice. One criticism of UNICOR is that by paying prison workers as little as 23 cents per hour, they undercut private commercial recyclers. Another criticism is that reliance on high tech chain gangs may frustrate development of the free market infrastructure necessary to safely manage the tsunami of e-waste that the digital revolution is intensifying.
How much e-waste does the consumption and production of digital media generate?
Digital media doesn\'t grow on trees. Its creation, distribution and use requires massive quantities of energy, minerals, metals, petrochemicals and labor. Rather than relying on proprietary estimates of product lifecycles or limited forensic evidence we need reliable standards-based lifecycle inventories of the energy and material flows that make our broadband connectivity and digital media experiences possible. Proponents of digital media often tout the benefits of the digital media shift in terms of the number of trees that will be saved, but shifting to digital media has an environmental footprint and toxic impacts that bear greater scrutiny.
The digital media industry has a long way to go before it can declare itself sustainable, or justify its environmental footprint based on cherry-picked data, anecdotal evidence and unfilled promises. Companies like Apple and HP that tout their commitments to sustainability fail to make a even a \"greenish\" grade in the most recent Greenpeace Greener Electronics Scorecard..
Until media companies, device manufacturers and service providers are inspired to make standards-based environmental product declarations through market pressure or regulation, it will be impossible for consumers to make informed decisions or compare the climate change or e-waste impacts associated with specific products or services. A look at the overall growth trends in a few key categories is enough to justify more serious attention to the issues at hand and to the toxic tragedies that loom over the horizon.
A shift in preference from traditional media to digital media is one key trend. According to the PriceWaterhouseCoopers report, Global Media and Entertainment 2010-2014, digital media\'s share of consumer spending is growing at double digit rates and is expected to reach 33 percent of their entertainment and media spending by 2014.
Growth in the number of broadband mobile connections and wireless devices is also a determining factor. Smartphone manufacturer Ericsson estimates that the world will reach 50 billion mobile connections within this decade with 80 percent of all people accessing the Internet using their mobile devices. Ericsson estimates there are over 500 million 3G subscriptions worldwide with more than 2 million mobile subscriptions being added per day.
At current rates of growth some pundits believe we may soon face a
4 Minute Roundup: Facebook Places Wants to Be Turned OffFri, 20 Aug 2010 16:43:22 -0800 - 4MR is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. In this week\'s 4MR podcast I look at the recently launched Facebook Places location feature. While the social network touts it as a great way to tell your friends where you are in the physical world, others worry about the privacy implications. In fact, the most popular stories on the subject are telling people how to turn it off. I talked with Gawker staff writer Adrian Chen about his take on how Facebook could have made it easier to turn Places off. Check it out: 4mrbareaudio82010.mp3 >>> Subscribe to 4MR <<< >>> Subscribe to 4MR via iTunes <<< Listen to my entire interview with Adrian Chen: chen final.mp3 Background music is \"What the World Needs\" by the The Ukelele Hipster Kings via PodSafe Music Network. Here are some links to related sites and stories mentioned in the podcast: Facebook Places Who, What, When, and Now...Where at the Facebook blog The First Thing You Should Do With Facebook Places - Don\'t Let Other People Tag You at Gawker Facebook Places Privacy Controls Get EFF Approval at eWeek Why I\'m Not Using Facebook Places at Jolie O\'Dell\'s blog How to Disable Facebook Places at Huffington Post How To Disable Facebook Places at ReadWriteWeb Facebook Adds Location Check-Ins Through Foursquare, Gowalla, and Yelp at LifeHacker How to Disable Facebook Places at LifeHacker Facebook gets its hands on check-in startup Hot Potato at SocialBeat Also, be sure to vote in our poll about what you think about Facebook Places: What do you think about Facebook Places?survey software Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit. 4MR is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com.
In this week\'s 4MR podcast I look at the recently launched Facebook Places location feature. While the social network touts it as a great way to tell your friends where you are in the physical world, others worry about the privacy implications. In fact, the most popular stories on the subject are telling people how to turn it off. I talked with Gawker staff writer Adrian Chen about his take on how Facebook could have made it easier to turn Places off.
4mrbareaudio82010.mp3
Listen to my entire interview with Adrian Chen:
chen final.mp3
Facebook Places
Who, What, When, and Now...Where at the Facebook blog
The First Thing You Should Do With Facebook Places - Don\'t Let Other People Tag You at Gawker
Facebook Places Privacy Controls Get EFF Approval at eWeek
Why I\'m Not Using Facebook Places at Jolie O\'Dell\'s blog
How to Disable Facebook Places at Huffington Post
How To Disable Facebook Places at ReadWriteWeb
Facebook Adds Location Check-Ins Through Foursquare, Gowalla, and Yelp at LifeHacker
How to Disable Facebook Places at LifeHacker
Facebook gets its hands on check-in startup Hot Potato at SocialBeat
Also, be sure to vote in our poll about what you think about Facebook Places:
What do you think about Facebook Places?survey software
CrowdSpring Brings Crowdsourcing to Design, WritingFri, 20 Aug 2010 09:40:24 -0800 - If you run any kind of business, large or small, you\'re always looking for ways to get quality work done at a low cost. And when it comes to contract jobs like web and logo design, or copywriting, you\'re caught balancing between quality and cost. A couple years ago, CrowdSpring launched as a way for small and medium-sized businesses to get those projects done at a set price from multiple people around the world. Each project is a contest, and the buyer gets to pick the winning creative work -- meaning everyone else just created something for nothing. After talking to the co-founders of CrowdSpring, I put the site to the test by telling two friends about it. One is a vice president at a mid-sized tech startup, whose wife does graphic design. His first reaction was that yes, this could hurt his wife\'s business and the designs must not be very good. His next reaction was to think seriously about whether his business should use CrowdSpring. Another friend needed a simple website design, and he decided against CrowdSpring and found someone local whom he could meet in person and brainstorm with. My takeaway was that services like CrowdSpring are not for every designer, nor are they for every business looking for design or writing contract help. But they can work for the right type of work at the right time. Barilla pasta had people design a new type of pasta using a CrowdSpring contest, and Guy Kawasaki designed his new book cover using CrowdSpring. Here\'s how the service works: You post your project needs at CrowdSpring, and set a price. (Minimum price for a logo design is $200 but they vary by category.) You pay CrowdSpring up front for the project price, plus a $39 fee and 15 percent commission. Creatives then have a specific time frame to submit their designs to the project page. You can provide feedback on their designs. The time frame ends, and you pick a winning design. You get the material and CrowdSpring pays the winner, usually via PayPal. If you\'re not satisfied with any of the design choices, you can get your money back from CrowdSpring, minus the $39 fee. They still pay one creative a winning fee up to $250. $100.* While CrowdSpring said they are nearly profitable, and have more than 68,000 creative people in their community, more established professional designers hate the idea of people doing work \"on spec\" -- without any promise of payment. An entire No!Spec campaign sprung up, with people like Andrew Hyde explaining why he hates CrowdSpring. His major worry was that the end game for crowdsourcing, if it becomes the standard, is there won\'t be \"more happy designers, or clients. Design as a whole will be lesser if this model is used, and that will be a real shame.\" But Mike Sampson, a co-founder of CrowdSpring, told me that opposition to them has changed. \"When we first started, it was a pretty steady drumbeat from many of the incumbent designers,\" he said. \"As it\'s gone on, I think it\'s tapered off and we only get pushback when a high-profile project is posted ... But I think the numbers speak for themselves. We have about 68,000 registered users, creatives working on our site. It is by many multiples larger than the AIGA, which is the leading professional organization for the design industry [and has spoken out against CrowdSpring]. It does speak volumes in terms of acceptance and the pool of talent out there, and the people who are out there who want an outlet for their creativity.\" The following is an edited transcript of my phone chat with Sampson and the other co-founder of CrowdSpring, Ross Kimbarovsky. They told me why they started the company, its challenges, and how they\'ve started a Pro version where companies can pre-screen creative workers. Q&A What was your motivation for starting CrowdSpring? What problem were you trying to solve? Ross Kimbarovsky: We came at it from two complementary perspectives. I was an attorney at the time leading the redesign of my law firm\'s website, dealing with traditional vendors. I had a very bad experience with those vendors. I picked a top candidate after a lengthy RFP [request for proposal] process, and when the vendor finally delivered, I was disappointed in the designs they offered us. At the same time, Mike [Sampson] and I had been talking because he ... wanted to outsource video work, and I was running into the same problem with getting contract design work done. I was so frustrated that I started to look online to see if there were better ways to buy creative services. I stumbled on some examples of groups around the world who had design contests, with students competing against each other for fun to see who could design the best print ad, for example. I called Mike and suggested we get together because we both were trying to solve slightly different issues, but it seemed like it presented a broader opportunity to change the way that people like us -- small or mid-size businesses -- buy creative services. Mike Sampson: We identified a gap in the market. Small and mid-size businesses had limited access to the traditional design market. The pricing structure is prohibitive for many small businesses, and ... there were geographical supply-and-demand deficiencies. If they were in a small town, they might not have access to talented creative. Since you launched it about two years ago, how have things changed? Startups often have to change focus. Has that happened at all? Kimbarovsky: There are two external changes that happened, though we didn\'t have to change our whole business. One was that large companies and even agencies were interested in working with us and our creative community. We hadn\'t considered that because we thought the problem only existed for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We created a more sophisticated version of our product that we call CrowdSpring Pro, which included more privacy, non-disclosure, user control. The other thing that changed in the marketplace was the acceptance of crowdsourcing more broadly across industries and government. When you launched, there were some designers who said no one should join the CrowdSpring community and do work on spec. Are you still dealing with an anti-spec feedback from people in the creative community? Sampson: We do. It\'s interesting. When we first started, it was a pretty steady drumbeat from many of the incumbent designers. As it\'s gone on, I think it\'s tapered off and we only get pushback when a high-profile project is posted. For instance, we have a project on the site with Guy Kawasaki of Alltop [who] has a new book coming out. He\'s sourcing the cover of the book design with us. We haven\'t heard from the \'no spec\' folks for some time, but as soon as Guy posted his project there\'s been a bit of an uproar on Twitter and on social media because a lot of Guy\'s followers are designers who work in the traditional model. And they aren\'t thrilled that he\'s using this different model. Kimbarovsky explains that established designers who have plenty of work don\'t need to use CrowdSpring\'s speculative model: designspring.mp3 Tell me more about CrowdSpring Pro. How does it work and what does it cost? Kimbarovsky: It differs in a few ways from our regular product. First, minimums in Pro start at $1,000 for most categories, and higher in some. For a typical design project, the minimum is $200. We always let the buyer set their own price, but we do have higher minimums in Pro. As a buyer in Pro, you can decide if the designers can see each other\'s designs or not -- you control who can see what. In Pro projects, you also decide who can participate in the project. Anyone who wants to work on one has to sign a non-disclosure agreement and can provide references, and the Pro buyer can check those out or their portfolio, and then decides who can participate. We created this because we had agencies and companies who wanted to try different things like product design and didn\'t want their competitors to see them. Or there were campaigns they wanted to launch but didn\'t want competitors to know about them or what the collateral would be. Pro projects give buyers more granular control, so they\'ve brought in more high profile clients. We\'ve worked with LG [with the Design the Future Competition], Barilla pasta, and numerous others including agencies. In those case...
If you run any kind of business, large or small, you\'re always looking for ways to get quality work done at a low cost. And when it comes to contract jobs like web and logo design, or copywriting, you\'re caught balancing between quality and cost. A couple years ago, CrowdSpring launched as a way for small and medium-sized businesses to get those projects done at a set price from multiple people around the world. Each project is a contest, and the buyer gets to pick the winning creative work -- meaning everyone else just created something for nothing.
After talking to the co-founders of CrowdSpring, I put the site to the test by telling two friends about it. One is a vice president at a mid-sized tech startup, whose wife does graphic design. His first reaction was that yes, this could hurt his wife\'s business and the designs must not be very good. His next reaction was to think seriously about whether his business should use CrowdSpring. Another friend needed a simple website design, and he decided against CrowdSpring and found someone local whom he could meet in person and brainstorm with.
My takeaway was that services like CrowdSpring are not for every designer, nor are they for every business looking for design or writing contract help. But they can work for the right type of work at the right time. Barilla pasta had people design a new type of pasta using a CrowdSpring contest, and Guy Kawasaki designed his new book cover using CrowdSpring. Here\'s how the service works:
While CrowdSpring said they are nearly profitable, and have more than 68,000 creative people in their community, more established professional designers hate the idea of people doing work \"on spec\" -- without any promise of payment. An entire No!Spec campaign sprung up, with people like Andrew Hyde explaining why he hates CrowdSpring. His major worry was that the end game for crowdsourcing, if it becomes the standard, is there won\'t be \"more happy designers, or clients. Design as a whole will be lesser if this model is used, and that will be a real shame.\"
But Mike Sampson, a co-founder of CrowdSpring, told me that opposition to them has changed.
\"When we first started, it was a pretty steady drumbeat from many of the incumbent designers,\" he said. \"As it\'s gone on, I think it\'s tapered off and we only get pushback when a high-profile project is posted ... But I think the numbers speak for themselves. We have about 68,000 registered users, creatives working on our site. It is by many multiples larger than the AIGA, which is the leading professional organization for the design industry [and has spoken out against CrowdSpring]. It does speak volumes in terms of acceptance and the pool of talent out there, and the people who are out there who want an outlet for their creativity.\"
The following is an edited transcript of my phone chat with Sampson and the other co-founder of CrowdSpring, Ross Kimbarovsky. They told me why they started the company, its challenges, and how they\'ve started a Pro version where companies can pre-screen creative workers.
What was your motivation for starting CrowdSpring? What problem were you trying to solve?
Ross Kimbarovsky: We came at it from two complementary perspectives. I was an attorney at the time leading the redesign of my law firm\'s website, dealing with traditional vendors. I had a very bad experience with those vendors. I picked a top candidate after a lengthy RFP [request for proposal] process, and when the vendor finally delivered, I was disappointed in the designs they offered us. At the same time, Mike [Sampson] and I had been talking because he ... wanted to outsource video work, and I was running into the same problem with getting contract design work done.
I was so frustrated that I started to look online to see if there were better ways to buy creative services. I stumbled on some examples of groups around the world who had design contests, with students competing against each other for fun to see who could design the best print ad, for example. I called Mike and suggested we get together because we both were trying to solve slightly different issues, but it seemed like it presented a broader opportunity to change the way that people like us -- small or mid-size businesses -- buy creative services.
Mike Sampson: We identified a gap in the market. Small and mid-size businesses had limited access to the traditional design market. The pricing structure is prohibitive for many small businesses, and ... there were geographical supply-and-demand deficiencies. If they were in a small town, they might not have access to talented creative.
Since you launched it about two years ago, how have things changed? Startups often have to change focus. Has that happened at all?
Kimbarovsky: There are two external changes that happened, though we didn\'t have to change our whole business. One was that large companies and even agencies were interested in working with us and our creative community. We hadn\'t considered that because we thought the problem only existed for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We created a more sophisticated version of our product that we call CrowdSpring Pro, which included more privacy, non-disclosure, user control. The other thing that changed in the marketplace was the acceptance of crowdsourcing more broadly across industries and government.
When you launched, there were some designers who said no one should join the CrowdSpring community and do work on spec. Are you still dealing with an anti-spec feedback from people in the creative community?
Sampson: We do. It\'s interesting. When we first started, it was a pretty steady drumbeat from many of the incumbent designers. As it\'s gone on, I think it\'s tapered off and we only get pushback when a high-profile project is posted. For instance, we have a project on the site with Guy Kawasaki of Alltop [who] has a new book coming out. He\'s sourcing the cover of the book design with us. We haven\'t heard from the \'no spec\' folks for some time, but as soon as Guy posted his project there\'s been a bit of an uproar on Twitter and on social media because a lot of Guy\'s followers are designers who work in the traditional model. And they aren\'t thrilled that he\'s using this different model.
Kimbarovsky explains that established designers who have plenty of work don\'t need to use CrowdSpring\'s speculative model:
designspring.mp3
Tell me more about CrowdSpring Pro. How does it work and what does it cost?
Kimbarovsky: It differs in a few ways from our regular product. First, minimums in Pro start at $1,000 for most categories, and higher in some. For a typical design project, the minimum is $200. We always let the buyer set their own price, but we do have higher minimums in Pro. As a buyer in Pro, you can decide if the designers can see each other\'s designs or not -- you control who can see what. In Pro projects, you also decide who can participate in the project. Anyone who wants to work on one has to sign a non-disclosure agreement and can provide references, and the Pro buyer can check those out or their portfolio, and then decides who can participate.
We created this because we had agencies and companies who wanted to try different things like product design and didn\'t want their competitors to see them. Or there were campaigns they wanted to launch but didn\'t want competitors to know about them or what the collateral would be. Pro projects give buyers more granular control, so they\'ve brought in more high profile clients. We\'ve worked with LG [with the Design the Future Competition], Barilla pasta, and numerous others including agencies.
In those case...
Social Media, Entrepreneurship Dominate AEJMC 2010Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:05:59 -0800 - Education content on MediaShift is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. The problem with five jam-packed days of panels and events is that you can\'t do it all. Presentations and business meetings for the 93rd annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), which was held in Denver earlier this month, ran concurrently from 7 a.m. until, for some, after midnight. I hustled from my booth in the exhibit hall to sit in on sessions across the different groups, but especially to eavesdrop on discussions among attendees and peek over their shoulders as they tapped silently on their iPhones. Below are five key messages I overheard in Denver. 1. Boots on the Ground \"I have to be on the ground, witnessing events with my own eyes ... [War reporting] is not just a cocktail party -- you can\'t just drop in.\" - Anne Garrels, former foreign correspondent for NPR Garrels commanded the room during a keynote address that saw her recount harrowing experiences during her six years as an embedded journalist during the Iraq War -- including false accusations made on her Wikipedia page that she believes could have gotten her killed. In the face of \"raw information\" quickly disseminated through new social mediums, Garrels emphasized committed, responsible, on-the-ground reporting. \"Having knowledge to put events into context is really key,\" she said. \"Otherwise, information is pretty hollow.\" 2. Editing Skills to Pay the Bills \"We need to get our students to think of themselves not just as reporters, but as editors.\" - Eileen Gilligan, assistant professor, SUNY Oswego Gilligan said the above during a session about teaching convergence in the midst of a climate of ambiguity surrounding priorities in journalism education. Her session, \"Teaching through Transition,\" presented data from several research studies conducted by AEJMC members that revealed an alarming disparity between the skills needed in convergent newsrooms and the core curricular priorities in U.S. journalism schools. The data underscored the importance of superior storytelling skills. But interpersonal skills (such as the ability to develop sources), news judgment (the right story, the right way), and multi-tasking (the hardest of the three) were cited by news directors as necessary traits to succeed in converged newsrooms. Gilligan said the most meaningful feedback was that editing is a core skill for current students and future journalists. 3. Social Media Everywhere \"Social media showed me that people don\'t just care about the news, they care about the people who write it.\" - Arizona State University student Sebastien Bauge, as quoted by Serena Carpenter in her presentation in the AEJMC social media competition Social media was popular during the conference, both in panels and in practice. One session, \"Social Media in the Classroom\", shared how instructors incorporate these tools in their courses. Examining Twitter updates during current events -- like the earthquake in Haiti earlier this year -- and hashtagging course names for classroom conversations were among the suggestions discussed. One course at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill invited Pizza Hut\'s public relations coordinator-turned-\"Twitterologist\" as a guest speaker to discuss corporate social media strategies. Mich Sineath, who tweeted for @AEJMC during the conference, called it the \"hands-down BEST panel of #AEJMC10.\" Social media happened to me, too. When inside the large, glass-walled room for Poynter\'s News University presentation (and announcement of its new syllabus exchange program), I tweeted from @CQPJournalism that it was one of the most well-attended sessions I had seen. Within minutes, professor Jake Batsell of Southern Methodist University responded that he had at least \"40+\" attendees for his panel on creating and running multi-platform student news websites. Turns out, Batsell was sitting two seats away from me. 4. Entrepreneurship the Answer? \"I\'m not even slightly interested in saving the industry.\" - Dan Gillmor, director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University The lack of viable business models that can sustain an increasingly complicated news marketplace was still the elephant in the room this year, especially in light of the fact that the conference showed that traditional news jobs continue to disappear. In fact, panelists for the \"New Media Economics\" panel admittedly had little to offer in terms of successful strategies. Gillmor, author of \"We the Media\" and a forthcoming book called Mediactive, went on to say, \"I\'ve given up the idea that the industry wants to be saved. We\'ve moved on.\" By that Gillmor meant that the news industry should look toward new types of social and media entrepreneurship. He explained that journalists and entrepreneurs must have an appreciation of risk and be attuned to the current media culture. \"Innovation,\" he said, \"is doing something better than how somebody else is doing it.\" 5. Enrollment Changing Along With the Industry \"Everything is changing, not dying\" - Guy J. Golan, chair of the new Political Communication interest group During the conference, I frequented the Starbucks on 16th street, just across from the Sheraton Downtown Denver Hotel. It was a place to refuel, charge my laptop, and access free wireless, which was not available in the conference rooms nor in hotel rooms. When I reached over to unplug my laptop, Golan handed me my cord and we chatted about the conference. He corrected my assertion that the common perception is that the news industry is \"dying\" and yet enrollment rates are rising in journalism schools. It\'s the PR and advertising programs that are gaining students, he said, along with niche beats like sportswriting and political coverage. That was an interesting distinction to note. It was also borne out by some of the association business that was taken care of during the conference: political communication and sports communication became newly-minted interest groups this year, and the Communicating Science, Health, Environment and Risk Interest Group (ComSHER) was raised to division status at the conference. Golan, currently a \"free agent\" professor, interviewed for work during the conference job fair, along with the many grad students I ran into at a school-sponsored evening social. He said there are \"lots of jobs, and lots of candidates\" in the world of journalism and communications education. Christina Mueller is an Assistant Editor in the College Division of CQ Press, a division of SAGE Publications. She comments at @CQPJournalism and blogs for the journalism and mass communication line of books. The opinions of this post are that of the individual author and may not reflect the opinions of SAGE Publications. Education content on MediaShift is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com.
The problem with five jam-packed days of panels and events is that you can\'t do it all. Presentations and business meetings for the 93rd annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), which was held in Denver earlier this month, ran concurrently from 7 a.m. until, for some, after midnight. I hustled from my booth in the exhibit hall to sit in on sessions across the different groups, but especially to eavesdrop on discussions among attendees and peek over their shoulders as they tapped silently on their iPhones. Below are five key messages I overheard in Denver.
\"I have to be on the ground, witnessing events with my own eyes ... [War reporting] is not just a cocktail party -- you can\'t just drop in.\" - Anne Garrels, former foreign correspondent for NPR
Garrels commanded the room during a keynote address that saw her recount harrowing experiences during her six years as an embedded journalist during the Iraq War -- including false accusations made on her Wikipedia page that she believes could have gotten her killed.
In the face of \"raw information\" quickly disseminated through new social mediums, Garrels emphasized committed, responsible, on-the-ground reporting. \"Having knowledge to put events into context is really key,\" she said. \"Otherwise, information is pretty hollow.\"
\"We need to get our students to think of themselves not just as reporters, but as editors.\" - Eileen Gilligan, assistant professor, SUNY Oswego
Gilligan said the above during a session about teaching convergence in the midst of a climate of ambiguity surrounding priorities in journalism education. Her session, \"Teaching through Transition,\" presented data from several research studies conducted by AEJMC members that revealed an alarming disparity between the skills needed in convergent newsrooms and the core curricular priorities in U.S. journalism schools.
The data underscored the importance of superior storytelling skills. But interpersonal skills (such as the ability to develop sources), news judgment (the right story, the right way), and multi-tasking (the hardest of the three) were cited by news directors as necessary traits to succeed in converged newsrooms. Gilligan said the most meaningful feedback was that editing is a core skill for current students and future journalists.
\"Social media showed me that people don\'t just care about the news, they care about the people who write it.\" - Arizona State University student Sebastien Bauge, as quoted by Serena Carpenter in her presentation in the AEJMC social media competition
Social media was popular during the conference, both in panels and in practice. One session, \"Social Media in the Classroom\", shared how instructors incorporate these tools in their courses. Examining Twitter updates during current events -- like the earthquake in Haiti earlier this year -- and hashtagging course names for classroom conversations were among the suggestions discussed. One course at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill invited Pizza Hut\'s public relations coordinator-turned-\"Twitterologist\" as a guest speaker to discuss corporate social media strategies. Mich Sineath, who tweeted for @AEJMC during the conference, called it the \"hands-down BEST panel of #AEJMC10.\"
Social media happened to me, too. When inside the large, glass-walled room for Poynter\'s News University presentation (and announcement of its new syllabus exchange program), I tweeted from @CQPJournalism that it was one of the most well-attended sessions I had seen. Within minutes, professor Jake Batsell of Southern Methodist University responded that he had at least \"40+\" attendees for his panel on creating and running multi-platform student news websites. Turns out, Batsell was sitting two seats away from me.
\"I\'m not even slightly interested in saving the industry.\" - Dan Gillmor, director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University
The lack of viable business models that can sustain an increasingly complicated news marketplace was still the elephant in the room this year, especially in light of the fact that the conference showed that traditional news jobs continue to disappear. In fact, panelists for the \"New Media Economics\" panel admittedly had little to offer in terms of successful strategies. Gillmor, author of \"We the Media\" and a forthcoming book called Mediactive, went on to say, \"I\'ve given up the idea that the industry wants to be saved. We\'ve moved on.\"
By that Gillmor meant that the news industry should look toward new types of social and media entrepreneurship. He explained that journalists and entrepreneurs must have an appreciation of risk and be attuned to the current media culture.
\"Innovation,\" he said, \"is doing something better than how somebody else is doing it.\"
\"Everything is changing, not dying\" - Guy J. Golan, chair of the new Political Communication interest group
During the conference, I frequented the Starbucks on 16th street, just across from the Sheraton Downtown Denver Hotel. It was a place to refuel, charge my laptop, and access free wireless, which was not available in the conference rooms nor in hotel rooms. When I reached over to unplug my laptop, Golan handed me my cord and we chatted about the conference. He corrected my assertion that the common perception is that the news industry is \"dying\" and yet enrollment rates are rising in journalism schools.
It\'s the PR and advertising programs that are gaining students, he said, along with niche beats like sportswriting and political coverage. That was an interesting distinction to note. It was also borne out by some of the association business that was taken care of during the conference: political communication and sports communication became newly-minted interest groups this year, and the Communicating Science, Health, Environment and Risk Interest Group (ComSHER) was raised to division status at the conference.
Golan, currently a \"free agent\" professor, interviewed for work during the conference job fair, along with the many grad students I ran into at a school-sponsored evening social. He said there are \"lots of jobs, and lots of candidates\" in the world of journalism and communications education.
Christina Mueller is an Assistant Editor in the College Division of CQ Press, a division of SAGE Publications. She comments at @CQPJournalism and blogs for the journalism and mass communication line of books. The opinions of this post are that of the individual author and may not reflect the opinions of SAGE Publications.
How Metadata Can Eliminate the Need for Pay WallsWed, 18 Aug 2010 14:04:27 -0800 - You have to admire his chutzpah. Rupert Murdoch, the so-called nemesis of public interest news, is now being hailed by some as its potential savior. Sick and tired of people reading his news outlets for free online, Murdoch has erected pay walls around his sites (or some of them at least). Anyone who wants to see what is published on thetimes.co.uk will have to pay at least £1. That includes search engines who are not even allowed to index the Times\' online content. Now we have to wait and see if the subscription revenues start rolling in. Yet even those who hope the pay wall succeeds have reservations. Pay walls represent both a practical and philosophical shift in the provision of news on the net. They represent a shift from the openness that has defined the early history of the web, to a closed world much more reminiscent of the 20th century\'s constrained media environment. Erect a pay wall and you immediately cut yourself off from much of the web community. You disable the vast majority of people from recommending, linking, commenting, quoting, and discussing. It is for this reason that any forward thinking journalist cannot help but be disheartened by the pay wall. It cuts you off from a much bigger potential audience. It suffocates networked journalism, whereby you engage with your readers to source, expand, deepen, and extend your story. It limits your opportunity to enhance your own brand, as opposed to that of the publication. But worst of all, it turns its back on the reason for the net\'s success -- the flowering of millions of conversations. As the lawyer who stopped writing for the Times after it put up its pay wall said, \"inside the paywall no-one can even hear you scream.\" Fortunately, there is an alternative. A way in which news can remain distributed, open, even re-usable. A way in which journalism can work with the grain of the web, and continue to grow, extend, and integrate. And it is a way -- crucially -- that journalism can still make money. But first, a story. Library of Alexandria In the fourth century BC, a student of Aristotle, Demetrius of Phaleron set up a library in Alexandria. It was a little different from the libraries we\'re now familiar with. It had lecture halls, a dining room, meeting rooms, and a \"walk.\" It also had a reading room and lots of books (or scrolls as then were). Within a few decades it had acquired almost half a million scrolls, many containing multiple works. Such an abundance of scrolls would quickly have become unmanageable had it not been for Callimachus of Cyrene. Callimachus started \"the first subject catalogue in the world, the Pinakes,\" according to Roy Macleod in \"The Library of Alexandria.\" This was made up of six sections and catalogued some 120,000 scrolls of classical poetry and prose. His methods were then adopted and extended by other librarians. Thanks in no small part to the cataloguing, people were able to build on each other\'s knowledge. Scholars began to compare the texts and try to understand the reasons why they differed. Hence cross-textual analysis was born. People were able to contrast and evaluate various scientific methods. Archimedes (of \"Eureka\" fame) worked out methods for calculating areas and volumes while at the library that later formed the basis for calculus. The library at Alexandria became the most famous of the ancient world, and spawned many further libraries and even whole university towns such as Bologna and Oxford. Yet had its books not been catalogued none of this might have happened. Had the books not had metadata giving basic details about who wrote them, when they were written, what they should be classified as, then there would not have been the foundations on which scholars could build. Metadata is just a fancy word for information about information. A library catalogue is metadata because it categorizes the books and describes where you can find them. You find metadata on the side of every food packet, only we don\'t call it metadata, we call it ingredients. The equivalent metadata about a news article would capture information about where it was written, who wrote it, when it was first published, when it was updated. All pretty basic stuff, but critical to properly identifying it and helping its distribution. Importance of Metadata Metadata did not matter so much when news was all tidily packaged together in a newspaper. You knew when something was published because it was inside that day\'s paper. You knew who had published it because it was on the masthead and at the top of every page. There was -- is -- lots of metadata about news in newspapers, we just tend to take it all for granted. The Internet, and the search engines and social networks that power the web, have broken the newspaper package down into discrete pieces of content. These atomized chunks -- individual news articles, photographs, video clips, audio clips -- are what we consume online. We do not read an online paper cover to cover, as we would a print paper. That would be exhausting. The BBC news website publishes about 150,000 words each day. To skim every individual article would take upwards of 17 hours. Instead we pick and choose, we unbundle. Rather than seeing unbundling as a problem, news outlets should see it as an opportunity. An opportunity to distribute news all around the web. An opportunity to get readers to help sell their news - by recommending pieces to their colleagues and friends, and by linking to stories from their networks and blogs. The only thing news producers need to do before publishing a news article, is make sure it has metadata integrated to it. This way whenever people -- or machines (i.e. search engines) -- see it, they can also see its provenance, recognize what category of information it is, and give credit to its creator. Having basic information about who produced something is to the mutual advantage of the person who wrote the article (or took the photograph or shot the film footage), and of the public who is reading it. The producer gets proper credit for what they created, and the public gets to see who created it -- giving the news greater transparency and a measure of accountability. When you think about it, it seems remarkable that so much content does not have this sort of metadata already. It is like houses not having house numbers or zip codes. Or like movies not having opening or closing credits. Or like a can of food without an ingredients label. As Jeff Jarvis wrote recently, \"When it comes to products, we want to know: where it was made, by whom, in what conditions, using what materials, causing what damage, traveling what distance, with whose assurances of quality, with whose assurances of safety.\" Why should news be any different? hNews hNews is just one of a number of methods of adding metadata. It is a simple, open standard that is free and that anyone can implement. We at the Media Standards Trust Britain developed it in partnership with Sir Tim Berners-Lee\'s Web Science Trust, and in the latter stages by working with the Associated Press. (This was made possible thanks to two foundation grants, one from the MacArthur Foundation and one from the Knight Foundation. You can read my blog posts about the development of hNews over at Idea Lab, a Knight-funded sister site of PBS MediaShift.) There are other ways to add metadata to news, for example using RDF or linked data. hNews is an easy entry point since it is built on existing standards (microformats), fits easily within any CMS (there is a WordPress and a blogger plugin), and is entirely reversible. Almost 500 news sites in the US have already implemented hNews, including the Associated Press and AOL. But you choose whichever one suits you best. (Some sample implementations are available here.) Once hNews is added there are some immediate benefits. Every news article has consistent information about who wrote it, who published it, when it was published etc. built into it. Every article also has an embedded link to the license associated with its reuse (so ignorance is no excuse). And, every article has a link to the principles to which it adheres. These principles should not only help to distinguish the article as journalism, but should make the principles that define journalism -- that are right now opaque and little understood by the public -- transparent. Moreover, all this information is made \'machine-readable\' by hNews. In other words a machine (like a search engine) can understand it. Making this information machine-readable opens up the less immediate, but more exciting aspects of metadata. It creates an ecology of structured data that makes search more intelligent, enables innovation, and opens up new revenue opportunities. It is a ...
You have to admire his chutzpah. Rupert Murdoch, the so-called nemesis of public interest news, is now being hailed by some as its potential savior. Sick and tired of people reading his news outlets for free online, Murdoch has erected pay walls around his sites (or some of them at least).
Anyone who wants to see what is published on thetimes.co.uk will have to pay at least £1. That includes search engines who are not even allowed to index the Times\' online content. Now we have to wait and see if the subscription revenues start rolling in.
Yet even those who hope the pay wall succeeds have reservations. Pay walls represent both a practical and philosophical shift in the provision of news on the net. They represent a shift from the openness that has defined the early history of the web, to a closed world much more reminiscent of the 20th century\'s constrained media environment. Erect a pay wall and you immediately cut yourself off from much of the web community. You disable the vast majority of people from recommending, linking, commenting, quoting, and discussing.
It is for this reason that any forward thinking journalist cannot help but be disheartened by the pay wall. It cuts you off from a much bigger potential audience. It suffocates networked journalism, whereby you engage with your readers to source, expand, deepen, and extend your story. It limits your opportunity to enhance your own brand, as opposed to that of the publication. But worst of all, it turns its back on the reason for the net\'s success -- the flowering of millions of conversations. As the lawyer who stopped writing for the Times after it put up its pay wall said, \"inside the paywall no-one can even hear you scream.\"
Fortunately, there is an alternative. A way in which news can remain distributed, open, even re-usable. A way in which journalism can work with the grain of the web, and continue to grow, extend, and integrate. And it is a way -- crucially -- that journalism can still make money.
But first, a story.
In the fourth century BC, a student of Aristotle, Demetrius of Phaleron set up a library in Alexandria. It was a little different from the libraries we\'re now familiar with. It had lecture halls, a dining room, meeting rooms, and a \"walk.\" It also had a reading room and lots of books (or scrolls as then were). Within a few decades it had acquired almost half a million scrolls, many containing multiple works. Such an abundance of scrolls would quickly have become unmanageable had it not been for Callimachus of Cyrene. Callimachus started \"the first subject catalogue in the world, the Pinakes,\" according to Roy Macleod in \"The Library of Alexandria.\" This was made up of six sections and catalogued some 120,000 scrolls of classical poetry and prose. His methods were then adopted and extended by other librarians.
Thanks in no small part to the cataloguing, people were able to build on each other\'s knowledge. Scholars began to compare the texts and try to understand the reasons why they differed. Hence cross-textual analysis was born. People were able to contrast and evaluate various scientific methods. Archimedes (of \"Eureka\" fame) worked out methods for calculating areas and volumes while at the library that later formed the basis for calculus.
The library at Alexandria became the most famous of the ancient world, and spawned many further libraries and even whole university towns such as Bologna and Oxford. Yet had its books not been catalogued none of this might have happened. Had the books not had metadata giving basic details about who wrote them, when they were written, what they should be classified as, then there would not have been the foundations on which scholars could build.
Metadata is just a fancy word for information about information. A library catalogue is metadata because it categorizes the books and describes where you can find them. You find metadata on the side of every food packet, only we don\'t call it metadata, we call it ingredients. The equivalent metadata about a news article would capture information about where it was written, who wrote it, when it was first published, when it was updated. All pretty basic stuff, but critical to properly identifying it and helping its distribution.
Metadata did not matter so much when news was all tidily packaged together in a newspaper. You knew when something was published because it was inside that day\'s paper. You knew who had published it because it was on the masthead and at the top of every page. There was -- is -- lots of metadata about news in newspapers, we just tend to take it all for granted.
The Internet, and the search engines and social networks that power the web, have broken the newspaper package down into discrete pieces of content. These atomized chunks -- individual news articles, photographs, video clips, audio clips -- are what we consume online. We do not read an online paper cover to cover, as we would a print paper. That would be exhausting. The BBC news website publishes about 150,000 words each day. To skim every individual article would take upwards of 17 hours. Instead we pick and choose, we unbundle.
Rather than seeing unbundling as a problem, news outlets should see it as an opportunity. An opportunity to distribute news all around the web. An opportunity to get readers to help sell their news - by recommending pieces to their colleagues and friends, and by linking to stories from their networks and blogs. The only thing news producers need to do before publishing a news article, is make sure it has metadata integrated to it. This way whenever people -- or machines (i.e. search engines) -- see it, they can also see its provenance, recognize what category of information it is, and give credit to its creator.
Having basic information about who produced something is to the mutual advantage of the person who wrote the article (or took the photograph or shot the film footage), and of the public who is reading it. The producer gets proper credit for what they created, and the public gets to see who created it -- giving the news greater transparency and a measure of accountability.
When you think about it, it seems remarkable that so much content does not have this sort of metadata already. It is like houses not having house numbers or zip codes. Or like movies not having opening or closing credits. Or like a can of food without an ingredients label. As Jeff Jarvis wrote recently, \"When it comes to products, we want to know: where it was made, by whom, in what conditions, using what materials, causing what damage, traveling what distance, with whose assurances of quality, with whose assurances of safety.\" Why should news be any different?
hNews is just one of a number of methods of adding metadata. It is a simple, open standard that is free and that anyone can implement. We at the Media Standards Trust Britain developed it in partnership with Sir Tim Berners-Lee\'s Web Science Trust, and in the latter stages by working with the Associated Press. (This was made possible thanks to two foundation grants, one from the MacArthur Foundation and one from the Knight Foundation. You can read my blog posts about the development of hNews over at Idea Lab, a Knight-funded sister site of PBS MediaShift.)
There are other ways to add metadata to news, for example using RDF or linked data. hNews is an easy entry point since it is built on existing standards (microformats), fits easily within any CMS (there is a WordPress and a blogger plugin), and is entirely reversible. Almost 500 news sites in the US have already implemented hNews, including the Associated Press and AOL. But you choose whichever one suits you best. (Some sample implementations are available here.)
Once hNews is added there are some immediate benefits. Every news article has consistent information about who wrote it, who published it, when it was published etc. built into it. Every article also has an embedded link to the license associated with its reuse (so ignorance is no excuse). And, every article has a link to the principles to which it adheres. These principles should not only help to distinguish the article as journalism, but should make the principles that define journalism -- that are right now opaque and little understood by the public -- transparent. Moreover, all this information is made \'machine-readable\' by hNews. In other words a machine (like a search engine) can understand it. Making this information machine-readable opens up the less immediate, but more exciting aspects of metadata. It creates an ecology of structured data that makes search more intelligent, enables innovation, and opens up new revenue opportunities.
It is a ...
10 Ways to Make Video a More Interactive Experience Tue, 17 Aug 2010 10:25:05 -0800 - I love my iPad. One of the reasons I love it is that it\'s a great device for watching video. Some mainstream media integrate video very nicely into their iPad applications. However, it seems that all this slickness comes at a price: The conversation with the people formerly known as the audience is often non-existent. It seems that the potentially-messy-but-genuine conversation with the community is being shifted to Facebook and Twitter. The iPad (and similar products) is potentially a disruptive device, empowering people to publish not just blog posts or status updates but also their own books and magazines, as the example of Flipboard (left) demonstrates. There is a danger, however, that traditional media won\'t understand this and will revert to its old ways by producing slick end products that broadcast without actually engaging in a conversation. You can see this tendency at work online in the videos produced by newspapers. Yes, you can (often) embed their videos, share them on Twitter and Facebook and via email. But often you can\'t participate in a discussion about the video. Sometimes you can\'t even leave a comment. Too little effort is being made to evaluate and integrate interactive and community aspects into video. For example, have a look at the impressive video production on WSJ.com. The videos are well done, but the integration of community interactivity is underwhelming. We\'re struggling with this at my own newspaper as well, but we\'re in the process of applying some of the solutions I suggest below. 10 Suggestions In order to help media organizations do a better job of making video interactive, here are 10 suggestions for integrating video into a wider discussion with the community. Enable people to leave comments on a video. What I often see on YouTube, however, is that the producer or uploader of the videos do not participate in the discussion. The same rules apply here as for text articles: If you don\'t respond to comments, there is a risk that people will consider the comments to be akin to graffiti on a blank wall, and not participate. When interviewing colleagues or experts in a video, provide a back-channel so the audience can chat along and add to the discussion. For example, Livestream.com and Ustream.tv offer a chat and social stream next to the live video. Ustream also does this rather well in its iPhone App. It\'s also possible to integrate video into a text-chat module, such as the previously discussed CoverItLive. A word of caution: Most people are not good at being a talking head on video while simultaneously chatting -- it tends to give clumsy and boring results. So let the live video host focus on her job. The same rules apply as for a regular chat session: It helps to have a fixed schedule for conversational sessions, and to provide an introductory article or post to provide context and discussion material, thus enabling people to ask questions in advance and to prepare for the discussion. You can invite community members to have a video conversation by using their webcams to appear directly on camera. I\'ve done some experiments with Seesmic video and will note that some psychological and technical barriers stand in the way of doing this well. Which means we need more experimentation. Especially when it comes to local news coverage, it could be interesting to invite your community members to contribute their own videos. In my previous post about immersive journalism, I mentioned Stroome as an interesting platform for collaborative video editing. You can easily build a virtual studio in Second Life and invite guests to participate in a live discussion with an audience of avatars/community members. Second Life enables you to combine audio (for host and guests) and chat (for the audience/community members), and a video stream all in one. You can do this for guests who would be hard to convince to come in person to your newsroom for a live discussion. To see this in action, have a look at the Metanomics show. You can find other related practices in the aforementioned immersive journalism post and the comments on that post. Do not underestimate the importance of text. It could be interesting to have three live streams: 1) The live video stream of an interview; 2) the chat channel; and 3) a live blog. The live blog enables people who missed the live event to quickly find out what the chat was about. During the event it helps those who are hearing impaired, or who are in office settings and can\'t watch the video. A very simple but effective technique is to announce a video interview in advance and to ask the community for input in terms of questions or topics for discussion. This seems very straightforward, but it\'s mindboggling how reluctant journalists are to ask the community for input. Along the same lines, there are many ways to ask for help when preparing for a video interview: You could use a wiki, a collaborative mindmap, or let people vote for the best questions. But in my opinion the good old blog post does a great job because it\'s conversational and not technologically intimidating. Just explain what your intentions are for the interview, what the context is (as you would do for your newsroom colleagues), and ask people to react. A follow-up in the video or in a separate blog post would be nice. Be sure to mention which community questions made it into the interview -- and make sure you tell your guest when a question comes directly from the community. Those are my ideas. Please share your own suggestions for turning video into a community experience below in the comments. Roland Legrand is in charge of Internet and new media at Mediafin, the publisher of leading Belgian business newspapers De Tijd and L\'Echo. He studied applied economics and philosophy. After a brief teaching experience, he became a financial journalist working for the Belgian wire service Belga and subsequently for Mediafin. He works in Brussels, and lives in Antwerp with his wife Liesbeth.
I love my iPad. One of the reasons I love it is that it\'s a great device for watching video. Some mainstream media integrate video very nicely into their iPad applications. However, it seems that all this slickness comes at a price: The conversation with the people formerly known as the audience is often non-existent. It seems that the potentially-messy-but-genuine conversation with the community is being shifted to Facebook and Twitter.
The iPad (and similar products) is potentially a disruptive device, empowering people to publish not just blog posts or status updates but also their own books and magazines, as the example of Flipboard (left) demonstrates. There is a danger, however, that traditional media won\'t understand this and will revert to its old ways by producing slick end products that broadcast without actually engaging in a conversation.
You can see this tendency at work online in the videos produced by newspapers. Yes, you can (often) embed their videos, share them on Twitter and Facebook and via email. But often you can\'t participate in a discussion about the video. Sometimes you can\'t even leave a comment. Too little effort is being made to evaluate and integrate interactive and community aspects into video.
For example, have a look at the impressive video production on WSJ.com. The videos are well done, but the integration of community interactivity is underwhelming. We\'re struggling with this at my own newspaper as well, but we\'re in the process of applying some of the solutions I suggest below.
In order to help media organizations do a better job of making video interactive, here are 10 suggestions for integrating video into a wider discussion with the community.
Those are my ideas. Please share your own suggestions for turning video into a community experience below in the comments.
Roland Legrand is in charge of Internet and new media at Mediafin, the publisher of leading Belgian business newspapers De Tijd and L\'Echo. He studied applied economics and philosophy. After a brief teaching experience, he became a financial journalist working for the Belgian wire service Belga and subsequently for Mediafin. He works in Brussels, and lives in Antwerp with his wife Liesbeth.
Experts Weigh Pros and Cons of Social MediaMon, 16 Aug 2010 12:39:17 -0800 - OurBlook.com has been conducting an ongoing interview series on the current and future role of journalism and social media. In previous posts for PBS MediaShift, I shared some of the insights we\'ve gathered about the future of journalism, and the skills that will be required of future journalists. In this installment, experts weigh on the impact social media has had on the media industry, and the way that journalists relate to their audiences. Overall, experts agreed that social media helps journalists: Have more frequent two-way communication with news consumers, and thus develop stronger relationships with their readership. Promote themselves by creating their own personal brand. Find an array of news sources and information in real-time, and stay updated on new developments. Easily promote content across multiple platforms, while at the same time reaching a wider audience. Do on-the-spot reporting by making video and photography more accessible and inexpensive. Experts Weigh In \"I can\'t understand why so many sectors are going kicking and screaming from the industrial age. News organizations have been reporting the change for decades, so what\'s the surprise? There is no shock that newspapers and magazines are failing; the model of printed news is being transformed into a new relationship model of information. Consumer markets, political conversations and everyday decision-making are being driven more and more by content in social media. Did news not get the memo that everyone wants to be a reporter?\" -- Val Marmillion, president of Marmillion + Company Strategic Communications \"Social media are value neutral; their main virtue is the promise of democratic communication. This brings along with it all of the difficulties of democratic society...incivility, bullying, bias, prejudice, privatization, power struggles. These problems aren\'t a reason to dismiss or fear social media platforms; they\'re a challenge to each of us to fight for parity, transparency, access and openness.\" -- Jessica Clark, director for the Future of Public Media Project for the Center for Social Media at American University, and MediaShift contributor \"Twitter\'s brevity, its inherent capacity to reflect and create chaos, and to do so instantly and without verification, does not suggest that it has the power to create the kind of narrative that sustains real revolutionary action.\" -- Trevor Butterworth, editor of STATS.org \"Too much information bouncing around at the speed of thought leads to too much information erroneously being \'reported\' or accepted as \'fact.\' This has only accelerated the pressure to be \'first,\' often at the expense of being \'right.\' But perhaps even more dangerous is that the increasing proliferation of choices means that news consumers can choose to focus exclusively on \'infotainment,\' and thus disengage from serious coverage of critical issues.\" -- Matt Hinckley, assistant dean for journalism and student media at Richland College \"At a joint National Press Club/Atlanta Press Club event a while back, I asked this question of the panel: In the future, how will people know what is a journalistic story and what is a paid, biased or fictitious post? I said I was concerned that young people may not know the difference. The panelists\' answer was to encourage journalistic literacy programs, which is a good idea. But the most telling moment came when a journalism student approached me afterward and said young people can tell the difference; he\'s more worried about people in the older generation like his mother, who can\'t tell a scam email from the real thing.\" -- Terri Thornton, owner of Thornton Communications \"I strongly disagree that social media represent a dumbing down of America. It\'s the opposite...it\'s a way for us to become more informed, more connected and overall less ignorant. It\'s a way for us to experience different lives, different worlds and different points of view in a way that\'s never been possible, quite literally, in the history of the world. To call this tremendous capacity and facility to share information a \'dumbing down\' is to miss the forest for the trees.\" -- Sasha Pasulka, blogger and founder of EvilBeetGossip.com \"People who approach political discourse from the perspective of reading blogs and engaging in online debates via social networks -- Twitter and so on -- tend to value authenticity in those interactions, and are less patient with the niceties of the one-to-many broadcast model of communication...Members of the millennial generation in particular find the pomposity and stuffiness of traditional media less engaging than the give-and-take of social channels\" -- Rob Salkowitz, author of \"Young World Rising: How Youth, Technology and Entrepreneurship are Changing Global Business.\" \"One particular advantage of social media is that they help a reporter see the intellectual and social network of a source. For example, in Twitter I can see whom you are following and who is following you. I can see what you have re-tweeted and what links you have selected. Therefore, I can understand more fully your social context.\" -- Jerry Zurek, professor of English and communication department chair at Cabrini College \"This is a new way, an emerging way, and now a pervasive way. So when you jump in this pool, you have to jump in all the way. And that means, you have to listen, you have to participate, you need to contribute value as part of those relationships. And the reason you have to do that is because if you are not, your competitor probably is.\" -- David Kissel, partner of the Zocalo Group \"Social media is a good tool for publishers to expand content reach, but it won\'t save the fundamental business model of journalism at its core.\" -- Mitch Joel, president of Twist Image, author, and social media expert. \"Social media isn\'t a fad; it\'s changed the way people share and consume content. The web has allowed people to create their own online neighborhoods and elect leaders to speak for them. That\'s something journalists are going to have to really take into consideration. It\'s a new audience.\" -- Lisa Barone, chief branding officer of Outspoken Media, Inc. \"To be sure, social media are a frightening phenomenon to incumbents in the press, in politics and in the media. To the incumbents, social media are profoundly disruptive because of how they obviate their ownership of the \'choke point\' in the communication channel. Their power is based on control of scarcity: Scarce resources, capital, intellectual property, and modes of production and distribution.\" -- Larry Elin, associate professor, S.I. Newhouse School, Syracuse University \"An active democracy is a successful democracy. As social media platforms engage voters in the political system, our democracy thrives. The risk, however, is that special interest groups have a significant opportunity to skew the conversation in their favor. While regular users have the ability to contribute to the conversation, few are motivated enough to do so. That allows motivated subgroups to manipulate the conversation and portray an inaccurate picture of the most important issues.\" -- Patrick Schwerdtfeger, author of \"Webify your Business: Internet Secrets for the Self-Employed.\" This article was co-written by Kurt Schilligo, a University Partnership Program intern. Sandra Ordonez calls herself a web astronaut who has been helping organizations navigate the internet since 1997. Currently, she helps run OurBlook.com, a collaborative online forum that gathers interviews from today\'s top leaders in the hopes of finding tomorrow\'s solutions. Since December 2008, the site has been conducting a Future of Journalism in...
OurBlook.com has been conducting an ongoing interview series on the current and future role of journalism and social media. In previous posts for PBS MediaShift, I shared some of the insights we\'ve gathered about the future of journalism, and the skills that will be required of future journalists.
In this installment, experts weigh on the impact social media has had on the media industry, and the way that journalists relate to their audiences. Overall, experts agreed that social media helps journalists:
\"I can\'t understand why so many sectors are going kicking and screaming from the industrial age. News organizations have been reporting the change for decades, so what\'s the surprise? There is no shock that newspapers and magazines are failing; the model of printed news is being transformed into a new relationship model of information. Consumer markets, political conversations and everyday decision-making are being driven more and more by content in social media. Did news not get the memo that everyone wants to be a reporter?\" -- Val Marmillion, president of Marmillion + Company Strategic Communications
\"Social media are value neutral; their main virtue is the promise of democratic communication. This brings along with it all of the difficulties of democratic society...incivility, bullying, bias, prejudice, privatization, power struggles. These problems aren\'t a reason to dismiss or fear social media platforms; they\'re a challenge to each of us to fight for parity, transparency, access and openness.\" -- Jessica Clark, director for the Future of Public Media Project for the Center for Social Media at American University, and MediaShift contributor
\"Twitter\'s brevity, its inherent capacity to reflect and create chaos, and to do so instantly and without verification, does not suggest that it has the power to create the kind of narrative that sustains real revolutionary action.\" -- Trevor Butterworth, editor of STATS.org
\"Too much information bouncing around at the speed of thought leads to too much information erroneously being \'reported\' or accepted as \'fact.\' This has only accelerated the pressure to be \'first,\' often at the expense of being \'right.\' But perhaps even more dangerous is that the increasing proliferation of choices means that news consumers can choose to focus exclusively on \'infotainment,\' and thus disengage from serious coverage of critical issues.\" -- Matt Hinckley, assistant dean for journalism and student media at Richland College
\"At a joint National Press Club/Atlanta Press Club event a while back, I asked this question of the panel: In the future, how will people know what is a journalistic story and what is a paid, biased or fictitious post? I said I was concerned that young people may not know the difference. The panelists\' answer was to encourage journalistic literacy programs, which is a good idea. But the most telling moment came when a journalism student approached me afterward and said young people can tell the difference; he\'s more worried about people in the older generation like his mother, who can\'t tell a scam email from the real thing.\" -- Terri Thornton, owner of Thornton Communications
\"I strongly disagree that social media represent a dumbing down of America. It\'s the opposite...it\'s a way for us to become more informed, more connected and overall less ignorant. It\'s a way for us to experience different lives, different worlds and different points of view in a way that\'s never been possible, quite literally, in the history of the world. To call this tremendous capacity and facility to share information a \'dumbing down\' is to miss the forest for the trees.\" -- Sasha Pasulka, blogger and founder of EvilBeetGossip.com
\"People who approach political discourse from the perspective of reading blogs and engaging in online debates via social networks -- Twitter and so on -- tend to value authenticity in those interactions, and are less patient with the niceties of the one-to-many broadcast model of communication...Members of the millennial generation in particular find the pomposity and stuffiness of traditional media less engaging than the give-and-take of social channels\" -- Rob Salkowitz, author of \"Young World Rising: How Youth, Technology and Entrepreneurship are Changing Global Business.\"
\"One particular advantage of social media is that they help a reporter see the intellectual and social network of a source. For example, in Twitter I can see whom you are following and who is following you. I can see what you have re-tweeted and what links you have selected. Therefore, I can understand more fully your social context.\" -- Jerry Zurek, professor of English and communication department chair at Cabrini College
\"This is a new way, an emerging way, and now a pervasive way. So when you jump in this pool, you have to jump in all the way. And that means, you have to listen, you have to participate, you need to contribute value as part of those relationships. And the reason you have to do that is because if you are not, your competitor probably is.\" -- David Kissel, partner of the Zocalo Group
\"Social media is a good tool for publishers to expand content reach, but it won\'t save the fundamental business model of journalism at its core.\" -- Mitch Joel, president of Twist Image, author, and social media expert.
\"Social media isn\'t a fad; it\'s changed the way people share and consume content. The web has allowed people to create their own online neighborhoods and elect leaders to speak for them. That\'s something journalists are going to have to really take into consideration. It\'s a new audience.\" -- Lisa Barone, chief branding officer of Outspoken Media, Inc.
\"To be sure, social media are a frightening phenomenon to incumbents in the press, in politics and in the media. To the incumbents, social media are profoundly disruptive because of how they obviate their ownership of the \'choke point\' in the communication channel. Their power is based on control of scarcity: Scarce resources, capital, intellectual property, and modes of production and distribution.\" -- Larry Elin, associate professor, S.I. Newhouse School, Syracuse University
\"An active democracy is a successful democracy. As social media platforms engage voters in the political system, our democracy thrives. The risk, however, is that special interest groups have a significant opportunity to skew the conversation in their favor. While regular users have the ability to contribute to the conversation, few are motivated enough to do so. That allows motivated subgroups to manipulate the conversation and portray an inaccurate picture of the most important issues.\" -- Patrick Schwerdtfeger, author of \"Webify your Business: Internet Secrets for the Self-Employed.\"
This article was co-written by Kurt Schilligo, a University Partnership Program intern.
Sandra Ordonez calls herself a web astronaut who has been helping organizations navigate the internet since 1997. Currently, she helps run OurBlook.com, a collaborative online forum that gathers interviews from today\'s top leaders in the hopes of finding tomorrow\'s solutions. Since December 2008, the site has been conducting a Future of Journalism in...
FeedBox by Magic RSS