Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing(and maps)

Mindy McAdams

Professor, Journalism

University of Florida

Gainesville, Florida USA

Example: New York City snow storm December 26, 2010

WNYC Radio: Google Map

December 29, 2010 (3 days after storm):

White = snow not cleared

Michael R. Bloomberg, mayor, New York City, December 2010

WNYC Radio: Google Map

December 30, 2010 (4 days after storm):

Purple = snow cleared

WNYC Radio: Snow Crisis• Over the radio, listeners were asked to text PLOW to

30644, the station’s mobile shortcode• The location of each text was added to a Google Map• The map was posted on the radio station’s website• Each person who texted was asked to also leave an audio

report as voicemail• The audio reports were played on the radio

“It really encourages other people to send in their story and contribute, when they hear people just like them.”

—Jim Colgan, former WNYC news producer

Lessons Learned

1. The audience can help journalists

2. Journalists need to think creatively so they can use this resource well (resource: the audience)

3. Social media can be very useful in crisis reporting

New York City snow storm

Minnesota Public Radio uses this map to show where members of the audience have reported holes in the street (“potholes”).

Instructions: Drag the map and zoom into your pothole’s location, then click once to add details or a photo.

Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) partnered with SeeClickFix to produce the pothole map.

Note the number of issues (open, closed) at the top.

Lessons Learned

1. Sometimes you can find the technology needed to produce a project (you don’t need to create it)

2. A project started in 2010 continued being used in 2014

3. Citizens used the map itself to report the location of potholes (instead of sending location in email, by SMS, etc.)

MPR potholes map

Example: Mumbai attacks November 2008

“The Mumbai attacks have unleashed a storm of live updates from residents, swelling traffic and content on sites such as Twitter and Yahoo Inc.’s photo Web site Flickr. A Google map on the attack sites was swiftly put up. A lengthy entry about the attacks on user-generated online encyclopedia Wikipedia surfaced in less than an hour.”

—The Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2008

Wikipedia was used as a reporting platform Current page

Wikipedia was used as a reporting platform As seen on November 26, 2008

Updates were made every 2–3 minutes Wikipedia history: 2008 Mumbai attacks

Google map: Mumbai attacks 2008 Mumbai attacks

Google map: Mumbai attacks

“Al Jazeera English tracked the points of the attack with the help of users

from Google and Twitter.”

Google map: Mumbai attacks

“Al Jazeera English tracked the points of the attack with the help of users

from Google and Twitter.”

Flickr: Immediate photos

“Journalist Vinukumar Ranganathan’s stream of photos were published by CNN

and other major broadcasters.”

Flickr: Immediate photos

“Journalist Vinukumar Ranganathan’s stream of photos were published by CNN

and other major broadcasters.”

Twitter: A stream of updates and live reports Twitter search: Nov. 27, 2008

Lessons Learned

1. Using all kinds of Web sites (Wikipedia, Twitter, Flickr), the audience can report on an event without help from journalists

2. Journalists from Al Jazeera English used Google Maps to aggregate citizen reports from Twitter and other sites

3. Again, social media can assist journalists in gathering information during a crisis

Mumbai attacks

Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is the act of

taking a task traditionally performed by

a designated agent (usually an employee)

and outsourcing it

to an undefined, generally large group of people

in the form of an open call.

Definition

—Jeff Howe, author of Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business (2008)

Example: Investigating MPs’ expenses 2008–2009

A crowd of snoopsWhat: All expense claims

Who:646 Members of Parliament (MPs)

Time span: Five years (2004–2008)

Total documents:

2 million

Question:

How do the reporters

at one newspaper sort through

2 million electronic documents?

Answer:

They don’t.

The Guardian: “Investigate your MP’s expenses” 2009

Simon Willison, a 28-year-old programmer who works for the newspaper, worked hard to make it easy for people to join in and evaluate the documents quickly.

Result: 170,000 documents were reviewed in the first 80 hours after the site went online.

Making it fun

Result: For many famous MPs, all of their documents were analyzed.

2009

Lessons Learned

1. People will contribute their time and their intelligence without any reward if each task is small and not difficult.

2. Journalists can ask the audience to help even in a case where no crisis exists.

3. The journalists (and programmers) must do some work to make the task seem interesting and fun.

Investigating MPs’ expenses

Crowdsourcing(and maps)

Mindy McAdams

mmcadams@jou.ufl.edu

@macloo