New Trends in Journalism

•January 2011, Sri Lanka College of Journalism

Where does the word journalist

originate?

• Journalism dates at least from the Acta Diurna of Rome (a series of public announcements that can be considered the prototype of the modern newspaper), but it was not until the 15th century that the invention of printing made possible its rapid growth. (Encyclopedia)

What about those Romans?

•Do you think they had a Code of Ethics?

•How about checking their facts?

•Or worrying about two sources?

French tavern postings

•Before the printing press, citizens posted their personal, hand-written journals on tavern walls for all to read.

•Full of opinion, they too were not what we now call journalists.

•They might be called citizen journalists.

•What we would call them today?

Does this sound familiar?

•What might we call these tavern postings today?

New trends:

•The rise of internet websites as news sites

•Newspapers, television, radio networks now have web pages as well as “hard” paper editions

•Some news sources don’t bother with paper -- they just publish on the web

Assignment

•List all the forms of “new media” you can.

New media and technology • Blogs • Social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Myspace) • Google Maps • Mobiles: SMS, MMS, Mobile photography and

video • VoIP: Skype • 3G: HSPA wireless broadband, ADSL

What’s new • Ubiquity of two-way communications • Stories/spot news of come from citizens • Low resolution content broadcast on high-

definition media • Content from ordinary peoples juxtaposed with

professional journalists

Enduring challenges

• Impartial, accurate coverage still vital, increasingly hard to ascertain

• Torrent of information. Trickle of knowledge.

• Post-disaster communications can be unreliable and difficult

• Technologies/electricity/servers -- can be controlled by repressive governments

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Low Resolution Images

• Crash landing in Hudson River, NYC

• Citizen journalist captures the scoop!

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUj6fF172Gc&playnext=1&list=PL8A0C1B4A28B820CA&index=70

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More bloggers break news

• Blogger Mayhill Fowler rocked Barack Obama's campaign by reporting his comments at a closed fundraiser that "bitter" small-town Americans "cling to guns or religion.” (April 2008)

Facebook reaches young audience

• More than one-third of people under 25 get no news on a daily basis (Pew Research Center for the People & Press)

• Yet teens spend many hours online. One British study estimates 31 hours per week -- especially on Facebook, the most trafficked social media site in the world

White House YouTube

• The first official government YouTube site. . .now every U.S. Senator has one.

• Why is this important?• YouTube now the second-largest search

engine in world -- after Google• 20 hours of new video uploaded every

minute

Even the Pentagon

• U.S. Defense Secretary Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mullen Use New Media

Here is your chance to ask questions of the top ranking members of the DOD leadership. Both Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen have requested that the public to include civilians and military members ask them direct questions through new media interactive sessions on defense.gov and youtube.com/dodvclips by Aug. 31, 2009.

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Iran Elections• Iran's tenth presidential election was held on 12 June 2009,

with incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad running against three challengers. The next morning the Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran's official news agency, announced that with two-thirds of the votes counted, Ahmadinejad had won the election with 62% of the votes.

• EU, US allege voter fraud

• Clashes broke out between police and groups protesting the election results. Angry crowds in Tehran broke into shops, tore down signs, and smashed windows. Civil unrest took place as protesters set fire to tyres outside the Interior Ministry building.

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Arrests, Prison, Torture

• Police arrest hundreds -- opposition leaders, students, protestors

• Bloggers post reports of prison torture, rape, executions ('Torture, murder and rape' — Iran’s way of breaking the opposition http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6839335.ece)

• Youtube clips show shooting of protesters, graphic photos of citizens recounting prison rapes and tortures

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Web and mobile phones shut off

• Facebook was filtered, Google blocked. Some news websites were also blocked by the Iranian authorities. Mobile phone services including text messaging also stopped or became very difficult to use. All websites affiliated with the BBC were shut off, as were The Guardian and Associated Press.

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Yet protests continue

• February 11, 2010: Protesters clashed with the security forces and a opposition figures were roughed-up, as the regime stamped its authority on the 31st anniversary of the revolution.

• Read how the day unfolded: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/feb/11/iran-protests-22-bahman

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George Polk Overseas Award

• Anonymous video of Neda Aghan-Soltan's death wins 2009 Polk award

New 'videography' category reflects rising professional use of user-created content

The curator of the awards, John Darnton, said in a statement that the footage from Iran, while anonymously recorded and distributed, had been seen by millions of people and had become "an iconic image of the Iranian resistance."

"This award celebrates the fact that, in today's world, a brave bystander with a cell phone camera can use video-sharing and social networking sites to deliver news," he said.

The video of the death of music student Neda Agha-Soltan, shot during protests over Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election, made her name a rallying cry for the opposition and sparked international outrage at the harsh response of security forces 2

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Twitter: the Medium of the Movement and the Moment

• Strengths: Free, highly mobile, very personal and very quick -- built to spread, fast

• Hash tags (#like this) added to tweets so can be grouped and searched by topic

• Can be picked up and retweeted

• Go out only over Internet and SMS

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Easy to Use/Hard for Central Authority to Control

• Unlike Facebook or Email, Twitter is public broadcasts

• Iran: Front pages of newspapers were full of blank space where censors had whited out stories

• But Tweeterworld exploded24

What is social media?

Some definitions:Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. (Wikipedia)

Perhaps something simpler?

• Social media is the use of technology combined with social interaction to create or co-create value.

Or?

•"Social media essentially is a category of online media where people are talking, participating, sharing, networking, and bookmarking online.” (Ron Jones)

The secret weapon

It’s fun and you can do it yourself

Two fundamental human urges

• To belong, to be part of a community

• To connect with something larger than yourself. . . to be part of greatness

What’s wrong with old media?

•Traditional major newspapers are losing readership . .and money

•Traditional television networks are losing viewers. . and making less money

•The media world is exploding with different alternatives

And most important?

•Web-based news is not profitable. . yet

•No workable business model has yet been found

Digital mobile technology

•But other fields other than news are fast adapting digital mobile technology in pioneering experimental ways. . .

•Perhaps leading the way toward a digital future. . . .

mHealth

•The provision of health-related services via mobile communications

Post-tsunami Relief in Indonesia

•Mobile devices replace traditional pen-and- pencil-based data collection in local villages in Sub-Saharan Africa, where workers use the technology to gather vital, time-senstive health information

Data collection in remote areas

In Zambia: EpiSurveyor for

immunization data

Number of ProjectsExploding

•Data Collection

•Patient Monitoring

•Remote diagnosis and treatment support

•Improves efficiency of health care at time when health needs increasing; number of workers declining

Indonesia: Electronic

Questionnaires workers use

Case Studies

• Thai study showed that TB patients who received daily text message medication reminders jumped to more than 90 percent adherence. (2007)

•A device called SIMpill uses mobile technology to monitor and direct medication adherence

SIMpill•A pilot study in South Africa showed

that with SIMpill, 90 percent of patients complied with their medication regime compared with the typical 22 to 50 percent compliance rate without system.

•In the US, improved drug adherence among HIV-positive patients who received SMS reminders

Amazonas state of Brazil

•Dengue fever -- caused by mosquitos during the almost constant heavy rains

•Local methods for storing water at homes promotes mosquito breeding

•State health department must constantly warn about water storage

•Data gathering by customized questionnaires distributed to mobile phones of health agents in field, who send info back to the server via wireless connection (begun 2007)

•Info has GPS location for each reort

•System is FAST, enabling health officials to map dengue fever outbreaks

Luiza de Melo Mustafa, health

agent:•“It’s easier, quicker and more practical. You type it and send it right away, it goes straight to the server. Then the data is consolidated and we can get the result immediately and, consequently, we may take the right actions, what we need to do. The devices are providing us with precision; the information we need to develop effective responses where infection levels are high.”

Studies: Spain, Australia, Finland,

Korea

•Improved followup on vaccinations, asthma medication or diabetes self care with text messages

South AfricaProject Masiluleke•One million text messages sent

daily to encourage people to be tested and treated for HIV/AIDS

•Messages in local languages

•350 percent increase in calls to National AIDS hotline after text message blast

Smile for You

Many more smiles

•In 2007 private medical clinic in South Africa offered 50 free clef lip and palate surgeries

•Campaign to promote free surgeries relied on print and radio news outlets

•Only 12 children identified for surgery

‘Please call me” text messages

•In South Africa, Vodacom donated one million text messages asking recipients if they knew of children needing the surgery

•Recipients who wanted more info were told to call a call center with medical staff

•On the third day of campaign, recipients could send and SMS -- “SMILE” -- to the call center and a health worker would call back

Uganda:

•Using wireless-enabled PDAs for disease surveillance, collection and reporting resulted in a 24 percent cost savings over traditional paper.

•Health workers said it allowed them to make faster and more accurate diagnoses.

UK: Appointment Reminders

•Texting appointment reminders improved attendance as effectively as phone reminders -- but cost one-third less.

•UK Study: Missed hospital appointments costs 575 million pounds each year

The future of mHealth

•What similarities do you see in these case studies?

Disaster Communications

•Mobile phones at various stages of a humanitarian catastrophe:

•Early Warning

•Immediate disaster relief

•Longer-term reconstruction

Food Aid to Iraqi Refugees in Syria•Since 2003, more than 2 million

Iraqis have fled their country -- 60,000 per month.

•Syria has received the majority of refugees

•More than 1.4 million Iraqis in Syria

•About 50,000 of them need food aid (World Food Program, United Nations)

WFP alerts families about food rations•Previously, WFP used NGOs to help

get word out

•But not all refugees had regular contact with NGOs

•Iraqi refugees not typical -- most had access to mobile phones

The solution?

•Text message location of arriving food aid and time for pickup

•Allows staggered deliveries

Inventors at work

•Intel aims for chemical sensors in cell phones

•The idea is fairly simple: cell phones already have GPS capabilities and network connectivity

•So now put a tiny sensor in the phone and tie it to the firmware

Inventors at work

Applications for environment

monitors monmo,mprogram

s•“We need to shatter our

understanding of mobile phones as merely phones and celebrate them in their new role as measurement instruments.” -- Eric Paulos, Intel Research, California

•Cell phones -- the ultimate data collection machines

Cell phones as sensors

•Air quality monitors . ..complete with GPS for accurate mapping of samples

•In Ghana, a pilot project: 7 taxi drivers and students equipped with mobile devices that sampled air.

•More mobile and potentially more wide-ranging than stationery government monitor devices

What do you do when you have too

many . .

Elephant Crisis in Kenya

•Too many elephants (5,000), too close to people and farms in north/central Kenya

•Marauding elephant herds destroy crops, sometimes people -- about five per year

•Farmers kill elephants

•More than 3,000 elephant/human conflict incidents per year

To the rescue. . .

Push-to-Talk

•Cell phones turned into walkie-talkie devices for local communities, wildlife service and landowners for early warning

•Report elephants to wildlife patrols

•Everybody can hear the reports

•The wildlife wardens can’t ignore them; go to scene, shoo elephants away

Once started...

•Push-to-talk used to report illegal logging, animal poaching

Crowd-sourcing for disaster relief

•The Ushahidi Project

•Begun in Kenya following post-election violence in December 2007/January 2008

•Using citizen email/text/cell reports, assembled a web “crisis” map -- sourced by a crowd -- to graphically show trouble areas

Ushahidi - Haiti

• January 12, 2010: Earthquake hits Port-au-Price

• January 13: Patrick Meier of Ushahidi at Tufts University emails HHH Fellow Jaroslav Valuch: Help! Can you come?

• January 14: Jaro arrives Boston 6 a.m.

100 student volunteers convened

aMer

100 student volunteers convened

aMerFirst at Meier’s

apartment, then in a basement classroom

they work through the nights

First at Meier’s apartment, then in a basement classroom

they work through the nights

• By plugging into the Twitter and FaceBook network, the students began collating thousands of messages from Earthquake victims

• Using GPS reports, maps from Lonely Planet guidebook (the most current maps of Port-au-Prince), the volunteers began to pin-point trapped victims

• The Haitian diaspora joined in, translating messages and/or forwarding on more messages from relatives

• Marines started picking up the Ushahidi locations and dispatched helicopters and search and rescue teams to victims

On the GroundOn the Ground

Ushahidi Project dispatched Jaro to Port-au-prince to track how their reports had been

put into action

Ushahidi Project dispatched Jaro to Port-au-prince to track how their reports had been

put into action

Ushahi- Sri Lanka?

•How could it be adapted?

Sunday, May 25, 2008

•A tornado about a mile wide ripped through Parkersburg and surrounding towns

•It struck between 5:30 and 6:15 p.m.

•The southern half of town was devastated -- houses, banks, the high school, and restaurants destroyed.

•All the towns records were lost in the storm

A news challenge

•The capitol city newspaper, the Des Moine Register, took it on as a challenge.

•The Parkersburg Tornado Project by the Des Moines Register in Iowa

•DesMoinesRegister.com

•http://data.desmoinesregister.com/parkersburg/parkersburg.php

Most viewed Google map in Sri

Lanka?

Ground views.org

•First viewed images of flooding at Menik Camp, where more than 260,000 DPP interned.

•15 August 2009

F

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A flash back to another century

Late on August 20 and early August 21, 1968, the Soviet Army invaded Prague with the aim of crushing the political and economy reforms know as the Prague Spring. But the first objective? Shut down Czech Radio which had broadcast a statement by the Czech Communist Party condemning the invasion. Opposition communication to the public was shut off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUaMkQAYQNw&feature=related

How would a similar scene be played out today – could silencing the radio and television broadcast shut down communication to the public? Write a scenario of what would have happened if the invasion of Prague happened tomorrow -- what news would get out, and how? 9

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