Social Media and the News Revolution

Sue RobinsonSpring 2013

Before we begin...• Have one ipad with the slides, one ipad with the hangout video, one ipad with the hashtag sman_uw, and perhaps one with the readings

• Designate one person as the “leader.” This person is not necessarily the one who speaks on video but s/he is the one who listens for an insightful statement to contribute to the Google Hangout and urges that person to either speak up (don’t be shy!) or repeats what was said for the group

• During Discussion Breaks, we will take 5 minutes to banter with our groups about the question and then come back on screen to weigh in on most salient points. Please tweet random thoughts as well.

One more thing: The group with the most interesting, significant

comments/tweets today will get a grab bag of goodies

next week. MUST pull directly from the readings to

be selected.

Interactivity: -- Publick Occurrences (1690)-- Bulletin Board Systems (1980s)-- New Jersey Online’s Community Connection(1990s) and Madison’s own thedailypage forums (1994)

Distributed content/reporting ---------> Self-publishing

(prosumers)

Online Journalism Story trajectory

First Wave: 1972-1994 (ARPAnet-videotext, BBS, Viewtron -- too expensive, tied up both TV and phone, end users taken for granted, world not

ready)

Second Wave: 1990-2001 (Web browser, Shovelware, digital newsrooms, Matt Drudge --

Recession; Dot.com crash; innovation too spread-out)

Third Wave: 2001-2006 (Convergence, widespread broadband, multimedia, interactivity

-- Business models failing; user expectations; YouTube/Facebook)

Fourth Wave: 2007-present (Twitter, Pinterest, SOCIAL, semantic web, dynamic content, J-

entrepreneurs)

Enhanced Experience, ImprovisationFusion of data from variety of sources

into one web application

Information anywhere, anytime

Melding of media formats into 1 interactive platform

Communal, spatial, temporal, private-public blend

• Multimedia: text, audio, visuals, animation, combinations

• Interactivity: Ability for the user to manipulate or modify the product or engage with the author, or create product themselves

Use print to explain * Use multimedia to show, emote

* Use interactivity to engage, connect

and build relationships

•What did you think of Page One? What does it tell us about how journalism has changed? What is the biggest take away of that movie in terms of journalism in relation to social media’s impact on the industry?

•How does the NYT reflect journalism as process, if it does?

Discussion Break

News Event

JournalismAudiences

Cyber-NewsroomSources

Individual Reporters

CitizenContributors

Cyber-Newsroom: Reporters, sources, and local/national audiences come together in cyberspace. News as first gathered by journalists is negotiated by

individual sources, reporters, and citizens, who add to the reporting. Such contributions influence the narrative formation, content, and impact, as well as its

very unfolding at times.

Corporate Media Groups like Yahoo, AOL and other Pro-Am (Patch, Public Insight Network, The Local)

Entrepreneurial Journalism (Spot.Us) (firedoglake)

Non-Profit Journalism (WisconsinWatch)Community-based Media like Dane 101Freelance Marketplaces like eByline

• Live Blogging • Online diaries, forums

• Games: Plan your park (or school, road, house, festival)

• Learning in New Formats: Understanding budgets

• Earning “badges” and a rep

Interactive Examples in News

None of these would be around without digital

capabilities, the capacity for distributed

reporting, and the increasingly

networked society.

Are citizen blogs and tweeting

of news journalism? Can you think of an instance where what YOU

blogged/Facebooked/tweeted reached level of journalism?

How so or why not? Do you think the Nieman piece attributing the Egyptian

revolution to social media was accurate or overblown? Is this what Jarvis thinks

about in regards to journalism as process?

Discussion Break

Detecting Online Bull

Discussion Break•Let’s talk about Blur, and

particularly how did the NYT (in the movie) demonstrate or not demonstrate what Kovach & Rosenstiel advocate?

•Name some specific ways in which we can use social media to “skeptically know.”

• Tunisia, Egypt, Madison, Britain: recent uprisings that depended on social mediated organization. Let’s watch how one NPR journalist covered the Egyptian story via social media.

Accuracy•Check the validity of the tweets,

posts before you retweet or storify them

•Make it clear in your tweets and copy when you don’t know for sure about the accuracy

•Correct your mistakes, often and quickly

•Check how long the person has been active on Twitter via http://howlonghaveyoubeentweeting.com/

•How frequent are updates?

•Is there a photo with their account?

•Who are their friends/followers? Any suspicious Bots?

Step 1: Check the person’s credibility

Direct message them and:

•ask for a phone number, ask if they witnessed the event and interview them privately

•ask them to describe what happened

•ask if they have other photos

•ask if there are other witnesses or if they were with anyone you can talk to

Step 2. Follow up on the tip

•Check the earlier information. Do tweets leading up to the tweet in question seem logical?

•Do follow-up tweets and updates make sense?

•Does it read “authentically?”

•Is there a photo attached? Check geolocation and exif data.

Step 3. Check the credibility of the information

•Check police scanners; call the cops, etc.

•Do a Twitter/Google/YouTube search to see if others are capturing same information

•CrowdSource (the Andy Carvin method)

•Call around the tweet/photo by looking up nearby businesses, for example, and asking if they see the same event happening, etc.

•Go to the scene.

Step 4. Corroborate the story

• Check exif data: regex.info/exif.cgi

• Check for edits to photos: fourandsix.com. Tineye.com is a reverse image search site that can help determine if photos have been used before elsewhere.

• Reference locations against maps, weather reports, other images from the area

• Do the vegetations, shadows, sun/rain, etc. all correspond to the photo’s exif date and time?

• Check other information such as the clothes/license plates/language/structures against the photo

• Are there other photos they can share (typically more than one is taken; be aware of the amazing shot)

Verifying Images

•When was the domain registered? (WhoIs.net)

•Check out page rank by Google (PageRank)

•Go to the Internet Archive: how long has the site been there? Has it been radically changed recently?

•Is there: About, activity, clear ownership,

Verifying Web Sites

• How could we have made this more interactive and dynamic? (if time)

HW due Feb. 5:

• Networked, Chapters 1 (The Triple Revolution) and then SKIM Chapters 2-4 (The new Social Operating System of Networked Individualism, The Social Network Revolution, The Internet Revolution, and the Mobile Revolution), as well as Ch 5 and ch 9

•Anderson, Chris: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html

•Heinrich, Ansgard. (2012). What is “network journalism?” Media International Austria. 144, 60-67. (See Learn@UW)

•Anderson, C., Bell, E., and Shirky, C. (2012). Post Industrial Journalism: Adapting to the Present. Tow Center for Digital Journalism: http://towcenter.org/research/post-industrial-journalism/ SKIM (OR you can watch Shirky talking about this here in a half an hour video: http://buzzmachine.com/2006/07/05/networked-journalism/)

•Respond to the Facebook Group page (see posted question). Please research Wellman’s work and tweet out two questions (@barrywellman) before Sunday at noon.

I’ve moved the other readings to Feb. 7, but if I were you, I’d try to stay on this reading schedule laid out in the syllabus so it doesn’t get too onerous. They are all super useful readings, for the most part. (and let me

know if something is NOT useful. The Networked book can be slow going but it’s an important fundamental concept for this class.)