new media: old wine in new bottles?

Sanjana HattotuwaEditor, Groundviews (www.groundviews.org)

what is social media?

• 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)

new media based journalism

• Glocal information – what is local anymore?

• Information agents are rapid moving, transnational and cellular

• A person in Cape Town can report on activities in Colombo who sources his information from someone in Menik Farm who sends an SMS to a relative in Australia who posts it to the web

• Models of news gathering and trust are changing

the revolution

Journalist Consumer

JournalistConsumer /

Witness

News as a conversation

News as a package

what’s new

• Ubiquity of two way communications

• Addressable peoples, even those who IDPs or refugees

• Journalism tied to ICTs

• First stories come from citizens, who are the first witnesses to any event

• Low resolution content broadcast on high definition media

• Content from ordinary peoples juxtaposed with professional journalists

new media platforms and technologies

• Blogs

• Social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Myspace)

• Google Maps

• Mobiles: SMS, MMS, Mobile photography and video

• VoIP: Skype

• Underpinning the above is 3G HSPA wireless broadband and ADSL

no longer just the elite

the use of new media internationally

Source Watch: Crowdsourcing

10 questions: YouTube for accountability

crisis in darfur: using google earth

mainstream media: all use new media

bombings in london

• 7 July 2005

• Within 24 hours, the BBC had received 1,000 stills and videos, 3,000 texts and 20,000 e-mails.

“saffron revolution” in myanmar, 2007

• 100,000 people joined a Facebook group supporting the monks

• No international TV crews allowed in the country

• Mobile phone cameras were the first footage of the monks protest

• Blogs from Rangoon were the only sources of information

• The junta shut down all Internet and mobile communications

burma vj: reporting from a closed country

the green revolution: post-election Iran, 2009

the green revolution: post-election Iran, 2009

• Social media played three very important roles in the Iran situation:

1.It helped Iranians communicate with each other.

2.It helped Iranians communicate with the outside world.

3.It helped the rest of the world communicate with both Iranians and others who sympathize with the protesters.

• YouTube and Flickr brought multimedia out of the distressed country. Twitter and Facebook updates have spread videos virally. Blogs, Wikipedia, and citizen journalism have helped disseminate and filter this information. Most of all though, these tools have helped people take action.

haiti: earthquake, january 2009

haiti: earthquake, january 2009

The use of social media in Sri LankaPresidential Campaign 2010

flickr for sarath fonseka

flickr for the president

facebook for the president

facebook for sarath fonseka

more compelling local examples

twitter: bearing witness to ground realities

groundviews.org: investigative journalismhttp://www.groundviews.org/2009/08/15/first-images-the-flooding-in-menik-camp-and-the-increasingly-dire-situation-for-idps

groundviews.org: visualising perspectives

groundviews.org: real time reportinghttp://www.groundviews.org/2009/02/21/air-raids-and-airports

groundviews.org: using twitter post-electionhttp://www.groundviews.org/2010/02/01/updates-capturing-aftermath-of-presidential-elections

groundviews.org: verifying storieshttp://www.groundviews.org/2010/04/04/confusing-reportage-over-comments-by-the-president-propaganda-or-fact

groundviews.org: participatory journalismhttp://www.groundviews.org/2010/03/15/strengthening-democracy-in-sri-lanka-an-open-invitation-to-generate-fresh-ideas/

groundviews.org: participatory journalismhttp://www.groundviews.org/2010/03/15/strengthening-democracy-in-sri-lanka-an-open-invitation-to-generate-fresh-ideas/

vikalpa.org: citizen journalism in Sinhala

youtube.com/vikalpasl: videos

perambara.org: regional perspectives

case study: mumbai bomb blastsNovember 2008

Flickr: first images of the attackshttp://www.flickr.com/photos/vinu/sets72157610144709049

Wikipedia: first narratives of the attackshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/26_November_2008_Mumbai_attacks

Wikipedia: first narratives of the attackshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/26_November_2008_Mumbai_attacks

400+ edits / updates

100+ authors

Less than 24 hours after first attack

Getting updates: twittering the attackshttp://spy.appspot.com

producing and reading content

gmail account: email, maps, news

• Free, from www.gmail.com

• Access to Google Maps (mapping)

• Access to Google Reader (RSS / web updates)

• Access to Google News (news updates)

gmail

google maps

google news

google reader: a web based RSS reader

wordpress.com: blogging

twitter.com: micro-blogginghttp://media.twitter.com

Google: Updates from social media

ustream.tv: broadcasting via a PC

youtube.com: online video

flickr: online photos

facebook: leveraging social networks

facebook: leveraging social networks

Wikipedia: leveraging it for journalism

bambuser.com: mobile phone broadcasting

drop.io: reports through audio

creating online content

• Think beyond text. Online is not print.

• Think beyond prose. Online can be satire.

• Think of photos, audio, video. Rich media tells stories.

• Think of SMS and crowd-sourcing

• Don’t suggest you know everything. Use the community to add value to story

• Link to other stories online

enduring challenges

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

• Torrent of information. Trickle of knowledge.

• Veracity hard to determine

• Pace of technology development hard to keep pace with

• Need some basic understanding of English

new media toolkit

still not convinced?

still not convinced?

Thank you