Reynolds High School Journalism Institute

S

Social media as a new paradigm

of journalism Donica Mensing

dmensing@unr.eduReynolds School of Journalism

Introduction

TED talk by Clay Shirky

(TED: Ideas worth sharing)

How social media can make history

A paradigm

"the prevailing view of things"

Social media and other digital tools are shifting the

paradigm of journalism from a transmission model

to a network model

Networked Journalism(Charlie Beckett’s analogy, author of

SuperMedia: Saving journalism so it can save the world)

Via Flickr, Oscar Juárez

In networked journalism, the public can get involved in a story before it is reported, contributing facts, questions, and suggestions. The journalists can rely on the public to help report the story… The journalists can and should link to other work on the same story, to source material, and perhaps blog posts from the sources. After the story is published — online, in print, wherever — the public can continue to contribute corrections, questions, facts, and perspective …

Jeff Jarvis blogging at:http://www.buzzmachine.com/2006/07/05/networked-journalism/

How can new technologies be harnessed to create an enhanced public service media environment?

Paper by Charlie BeckettDirector, POLIS, London School of Economics

Social media expands our journalistic paradigm to

include social practice as well as professional

practice.

Examples

Professional editors vs. readers as editors

Press to people information flows vs. people to press information flows

A gift economy vs. a commercial economy

Seeking information vs. seeking democracy

Examples taken from “The Weblog: An Extremely Democratic Form in Journalism”

by Jay Rosen, NYU journalism professor

Why should we think it normal to broadcast every personal detail about Anna Nicole Smith or Madonna or Michael Jackson, but then laugh at people who put their own stories and personal details on their own blogs?

Which action is more democratic?

Idea from Jay Rosen (ibid.)

What is Twitter?

Twitter in Plain English

How are journalists using Twitter?

As a public scanner and personal wire service

To enhance reporting, vet ideas

To develop beats

To connect with audiences

To share/publish information immediately

To build a personal network

What are the challenges?

Focus on immediacy as opposed to long term questions

Time away from other tasks

Special interests masking themselves as citizens

Merging of public and private lives

Mixture of rumor, gossip, inaccurate and accurate reporting

Interested in more about Twitter?

Check out the social bookmarking site Del.icio.us

http://delicious.com/dmensing/twitter

Note: So far, teens favor SMS over Twitter

What is social networking?

Social Networking in Plain English

Developing a reporting community

BeatBlogging.org

Public Insight Network

MinnPost (and even an advertising community)

Other social media tools

Blogging (Blogger and WordPress) (See Scott Rosenberg’s new book on how blogs changed everything)

YouTube, Vimeo and Vuvox

Flickr

Ning

Social bookmarking sites, music sharing sites, etc.

Opportunities for education in the journalism

classroom

How to set circles of intimacy in social networks

How to define private and public spaces

How to filter and evaluate information (CrapDetection 101)

How to find and organize (curate) (IRE)

How to build networks online and off

How to use these tools to improve journalism