Group items tagged

What types of news stories do consumers share and discuss the most? What issues do they have less interest in? What is the interplay of the various new media platforms? And how do their agendas compare with that of the mainstream press? To answer these questions, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism has gathered a year of data on the top news stories discussed and linked to on blogs and social media pages and seven months' worth on Twitter. We also have analyzed a year of the most viewed news-related videos on YouTube. Several clear trends emerge.

NYU professor and Internet thinker Clay Shirky gave a talk Tuesday at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, our friends just on the other side of Harvard Square. His subject was the future of accountability journalism in a world of declining newspapers.

"This course is taught at the University of Florida in the College of Journalism and Communications. It is open to any UF student who has completed JOU3101 or RTV3303 with a grade of C or better. You will find it listed under Journalism with the course number JOU4341."

Overview of some uses of Facebook in journalism, by Leah Betancourt, digital community manager at the Star Tribune.

"To those who Twitter, the reporter who investigates a story before offering it to the public must also seem tediously ruminant. On Twitter, the notes become the story, devoid of even five minutes of reflection on the writer's way to the computer. I can see that there are times -an airplane landing in the Hudson, a presidential election in Iran-when this type of impromptu journalism becomes a necessity, and an exciting one at that. Luckily, reporters still exist to make sense of information bytes and expand upon them for readers-but for how much longer?"

ScienceDirect - Journal of Public Economics :

"The scarce resource in the age of digital journalism is not high-quality content, but attention."

Probably the most important reading we will do in terms of "foundations" of social networks. Take your time with it and read it closely.

"Social network sites (SNSs) are increasingly attracting the attention of academic and industry researchers intrigued by their affordances and reach. This special theme section of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication brings together scholarship on these emergent phenomena. In this introductory article, we describe features of SNSs and propose a comprehensive definition. We then present one perspective on the history of such sites, discussing key changes and developments. After briefly summarizing existing scholarship concerning SNSs, we discuss the articles in this special section and conclude with considerations for future research."

I disagree with some of his points, but well-argued and documented. From: J Comp Mediated Comm, Volume 13 Issue 2 Page 516-529, January 2008 (Full Text)

I've overdone this metaphor, but I really do see the panoply of sources we have about Iran as an intelligence service to the masses.

Great essay from Shirky on newspapers and changes in culture.

article by danah boyd on identity, social networks, and the mixed audience of social network interactions... this page also has an .mp3 audio of danah's discussion of the piece.

profile of early social network system

by Laura Garton, Caroline Haythornthwaite, and Barry Wellman

"I want to go in a completely different direction today. Ready? You need to understand that the way you imagine the users will determine how useful a journalist you will be."

2006 profile of Rocketboom. Interesting now as a "what they were thinking" piece.

Nice timeline of history of the Web, 2000-2010. Good mix of items and some include audio links. Used in class.

Good guide for journalists about Wikipedia, how to use it, ways to check credibility of an article.

Great set of interview tips.